Houston photographer captures Texas women with their pistols

Houston photographer Shelley Calton sought to photograph Texas women with some of their most prized possessions, the handguns they use for personal protection in public and in their inner sanctums. They were captured Kerrville, Austin, San Antonio, League City, and Conroe. Some live in the Heights and Montrose neighborhoods in Houston. Calton found 80 women for her photo series, titled “Concealed, She’s Got a Gun.” She began the project in 2011 after a friend was getting her hair done at a West Gray salon and a fellow patron’s handgun went off in her purse. less Houston photographer Shelley Calton sought to photograph Texas women with some of their most prized possessions, the handguns they use for personal protection in public and in their inner sanctums. They were ... more Image 1 of / 26 Caption Close Houston photographer captures Texas women with their pistols 1 / 26 Back to Gallery

A Houston photographer sought to photograph Texas women with some of their most prized possessions, the handguns they use for personal protection in public and in their inner sanctums.

Shelley Calton found 80 women for her photo series, titled “Concealed,” which will be released by imprint Kehrer Verlag in Europe in March 2015 and later in the United States in September 2015.

She began the project in 2011 after a friend was getting her hair done at a West Gray salon and a fellow patron’s handgun went off in her purse. A bullet whizzed about the room, nearly hitting Calton’s friend. The tale got Calton’s photographic brain racing and “Concealed” was soon born out of that nearly-lethal incident.

She started with a close friend of hers and through word of mouth Calton found dozens more Texas women who pack heat. The youngest woman in the project was 21 at the time she was photographed. The oldest is the former mayor of Bunker Hill Village. There is a Houston-area criminal court judge she photographed. None of the last names of the women were used and some opted to not have their faces shown.

They were captured Kerrville, Austin, San Antonio, League City, and Conroe. Some live in the Heights and Montrose neighborhoods in Houston.

The women who Calton photographed are mostly concealed handgun license holders (“90 percent,” she says) just like Calton. She distinctly remembers hearing in her CHL classes that guns are not an accessory but a very real and lethal tool.

“Some of the women collect guns like they would shoes or handbags, but they all take gun ownership very seriously. They practice regularly with them, and go to the gun range regularly,” says Calton. Most carry 9mm handguns. Some opt for revolvers.

Last week our own Heather Alexander looked at the explosion of luxury gun ranges in Texas, which are now finding it beneficial to cater to female gun owners. Previously the scene was very much a man’s pursuit. That’s not the case in Texas where we are equal opportunity when it comes to firearms. Women in Texas learn how to rack shotguns and load clips with their fathers on Saturday afternoons at gun ranges and deer leases.

Most of these women grew up with guns, Calton says, so they didn’t have an aversion to them. Some women had a traumatic incident in their past that lead them to always have a handgun nearby. One was briefly kidnapped. Others were sick of feeling vulnerable and threatened. Some carry now because their significant others wanted them to be able to protect themselves and their children if needed.

“Some carry on their bodies everywhere they go, some in their purses, and some just in their cars and homes,” says Calton. One woman carries her concealed piece in a small Coach purse, with the pistol taking up most of the space.

One woman got a bit too close for comfort to Angel Maturino Resendiz, the serial killer who claimed he was half-man, half-angel, while working on her ranch during his reign of terror. She now carries at all times.

The most arresting photo in Calton’s series is a woman who owned a liquor store and sex shop off Highway 6, which has now since shuttered. The woman is seen with a single-shot .22 clipped on her tank top and a revolver on her hip. Sex toys surround her. (You won’t see that photo on the Houston Chronicle site, however entertaining.)

Some people who have seen the photos have complained about the questionable trigger discipline involved. The guns aren't loaded, Calton reminds.

"I asked them in advance to unload their guns, and then I check when I get there for the photo shoot," she says.

Calton says that it’s not easy photographing a woman with a handgun and making it look natural. It was making both subjects congruous that was the challenge, which Calton deftly achieves.

A rockabilly gal in a bright dress and traditional hairdo is seen with two modern pistols in bed with her, looking like a modern crime noir cover model. A young mother can be seen in her kitchen with a little boy nuzzled at her side, a Walther pistol in her hand, finger off the trigger. Many look like the women you would see chatting on their phones outside a yoga studio.

One of Calton’s previous projects involved photographing rough and tumble roller derby girls. She ended up finding a few of them that also happen to carry handguns for protection. Many women owned more than one pistol so choices had to be made.

Many gun enthusiasts have balked at the trigger discipline in some of the photos. Some women in the photographs have their fingers on the triggers of their handguns, which to those well-versed in gun safety know is a no-no.

"I asked them in advance to unload their guns, and then I checked when I arrived there for the photo shoot," says Calton.

All gun safety classes more or less teach that triggers and fingers are not to touch unless the shooter intends to fire, whether or not the gun is loaded or unloaded.

She says it was hard to find minority women for the project. During her research she found that its primarily white women that get their CHL licenses. She wanted to find diversity but found that the time, effort, and cost involved in taking the classes can be a burden for some women. They may have the gun in their possession but don't have a CHL.

When the project was profiled by the New York Times earlier this week it started off a battle in the comment section, naturally, with pro-gun and anti-gun nuts shooting from the hip at each other. Some championed the women while others dismissed them as typical Texas crazies. A Cosmopolitan profile misspelled her name and fixated on the national gun control debate. Calton reminded that she sees herself as a photojournalist and not an advocate for either side of the coin.

Calton’s next project centers on Scottish countryside hunts, full of men and women in formal hunting gear, dogs with ducks in their mouths and shotguns smoking from shooting.