I put that up on my website as the first line of my "About" page as well as the about paragraph to the right here. A friend of mine laughed and laughed about that. It is meant to be funny but it can be very serious too. In this day and age, people are getting shot left and right, and it's a very scary prospect bringing up a young family in the DC Metro area.
This all comes to mind because David Hobby (THE strobist at strobist.com) put up this fathers day post: "A Father's Day Reminder: Shoot Your Kids". I immediately thought of people who might read that out of context and the repercussions people have had from saying shoot instead of photograph.
As most of you may know, I'm a US Marine Corps Veteran. I that's where my funny tagline comes from. When I was in boot camp, my drill instructor had a USMC license plate frame that read: USMC Infantry. I kill people for a living. Fitting I guess, albeit a harsh way of saying it. I thought I'd play on that to a photographers favor.
A colleague of mine is also a Marine Veteran of over 25 years. He told me of a day he was tasked with going to shoot the president as part of his official duties as a Marine Corps Photographer. As soon as they drew their weapons, he knew the mistake he made. When he told the security detail what he was there to do, they detained him immediately! It took quite a while and a bunch of phone calls before he was able to be released to his command. Needless to say he didn't shoot the president with film or otherwise.
These days I'm very clear that I photograph people and shoot landscapes.
This is me after shooting a bunch of people (with a video camera that is. I was lucky enough to never have to fire a weapon in a hostile environment):
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