I admit it, as a former professional photographer and a current gun enthusiast, I have a natural tendency to get squicked when I see people photographing guns while violating any of the 4 Rules. For example, Caleb put up this picture on Facebook
Of course, the very first thing that popped into my head was “HEY! I have those exact same gloves!” which was immediately followed by OMGFINGERONTHEBOOMSWITCH!!!!
Which is ridiculous.
The 4 Rules aren’t exactly immutable. In fact, you can break one and still be safe. Heck, you can break them all if the gun is truly unloaded and the most that could happen is a bystander requiring a change of underwear. You can be safe taking photographs that would normally be considered dangerous. For example, I’d be willing to be in this photo, Caleb’s gun is unloaded and that where he’s pointing would be a safe enough place for the bullet to go in case there was an accident. In the comments, he indicates they used a tripod and timer so there was no human being in the line of fire (which, incidentally the camera is not in either).
The other day, I saw a photo by Oleg Volk where the finger was not only on the trigger, but there were rounds visible in the cylinder of the revolver! Now, I know Oleg is a safety conscious photographer and thus, even though a portion of my brain screamed at the photo, I can easily believe no one was ever in danger during that whole session.
My only issue (and this is kind of an appeasement to my CDO) is that non-gunnies may get the wrong idea. Alas, I guess I wouldn’t freak out if I saw a photo of someone using a table saw without the proper guards, so I shouldn’t care so much about seeing photographs such as these. In fact, I was thinking about making one very similar to Caleb’s for my Facebook picture and I thought about how I could easily do it with a tripod & a timer, but was kind of unsure how to provide a proper backstop as I wanted to do it outside. Then I realized how stupid I was being because I would know without a shred of doubt that the pistol was unloaded.
So, Rule Nazi’s relax. While it’s not something to take lightly, you can photograph people with their fingers on the trigger and not be putting others in danger.