Shot ─ 101 Survivors of Gun Violence in America

The increasing ubiquity of gun violence has unfortunately become the norm across the world, and particularly in the United States, where we have begun to hear about horror after horror on an almost daily basis. It has now started to produce a numbing effect, a helplessness that allows us to hear the news and say, "Here we go again," and put it out of our mind. Gun violence is now something we expect to happen.

The goal of SHOT is to focus attention on the survivors of gun violence—people who have been shot and survived the experience. From across the United States, survivors from all races, many ethnicities, and from ages 8–80, including high and low-profile shootings. These are the united faces of "survivorhood"—101 images of 101 different, relatable people who have gone through this life altering experience. 

The majority of portraits are taken at the locations of the shootings. This adds another dimension to SHOT as most of these locations are banal, "normal" places we all visit: shopping centers, places of entertainment, churches, neighborhood streets, gyms, movie theaters, etc. Many of the shootings occur in the survivors' homes or in their cars. Shootings occur everywhere. Gun owners and NRA members are also included. It is not meant to be polarizing, but rather to connect us to each other. SHOT allows us to explore the truth about the lived experience of gun violence in America.

Kathy Shorr was born in Brooklyn, New York. She is a photographer whose work crosses the borders of documentary, portraiture, and street photography. She received her undergraduate degree in photography from The School of Visual Arts. Shorr also has an Masters in Education that was received while working as a New York Teaching Fellow in public schools in crisis. Her work has been shown in galleries in New York City and was featured in the celebrated Visa pour l’Image in Perpignan, France. She lives and works in New York City.

Dr. Tanya L. Zakrison is a trauma surgeon and surgical intensivist at Jackson Memorial Hospital's Ryder Trauma Center in Miami, Florida. She is an Assistant Professor of Surgery at the University of Miami and lectures in the Department of Public Health. Her public health training was through the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health with coursework in Baltimore and Barcelona with professors Vicente Navarro, Carles Muntaner, and Joan Benach. They inspired her to explore the upstream "Causes of the Causes" of violence and trauma. Dr. Zakrison is originally from Toronto, Canada and a graduate of the University of Toronto. 

Max Kozloff is a New York-based writer on art and photography. He has had several shows of his own color street photography, exemplified in his monograph New York Over the Top, Contrasto, 2013. He is the author of The Theatre of the Face: Portrait Photography Since 1900 (Phaidon, 2007).