The series of photographs I created for my thesis consist of the objects of guns – live ammunition and the miniscule parts of a handgun – resting on a consistent off-white background. I rely on the rhetoric of the image and the inherent use of signs that Roland Barthes introduces in Camera Lucida to distort and disrupt the context of the objects I photograph. I combine the emphasis of indexical signs, to subtly point to the subject of guns rather than the loaded symbolism, with the aestheticization of the residue of guns. My use of beauty combined with this divisive and problematic imagery converges to attract and repulse, a notion that Julia Kristeva describes as abjection. It is my intent to invite and persuade the viewer to look longer by using photographic techniques seen in advertising. The ambiguity and abstraction created by the simple background focuses attention on the objects themselves, removed from any context. It is my hope to subvert the viewer’s possible bias and prejudices about guns to create a newer space for an open-minded discourse. My inquiry is an earnest and frank look at the highly polemic subject of guns and my fascination with them.