Netherlands-based photographer An-Sophie Kesteleyn has created a series titled ‘My First Rifle’, where she captures portraits of children posing with designed-for-children rifles.
In the series, each child carries a Crikett rifle, a smaller-scale firearm that comes in a variety of colors and are designed for children. Each image is also accompanied by a torn notebook page, where each child innocently scribbles their deepest fear.
Through this, Kesteleyn creates a dialogue on the United States' gun law controversy and how gun culture passes down from one generation to the next.
From the way these portraits are framed, each child stands on their small beds, or beside their other toys in their bedrooms. This makes the .22 caliber rifles that each child carries look like toys, when they are in fact a weapon intended to kill, or wound, another.
[via Beautiful Decay]