In almost every picture #7 tells the story of a Dutch woman whose life is seen from the point of view of a fairground shooting gallery.The chronological series begins in 1936, when a 16-year-old girl from Tilburg in Holland picks up a gun and shoots at the target in a shooting gallery. Every time she hits the target, it triggers the shutter of a camera and a portrait of the girl in firing pose is taken and given as a prize.
And so a lifelong love affair with the shooting gallery begins. This series documents almost every year of the woman’s life (there is a conspicuous pause from 1939 to 1945) up until present times. At the age of 88 Ria van Dijk still makes her pilgrimage to the Shooting Gallery. In almost every picture #7 is a biography of one woman’s life from an unusual perspective, one which allows us to witness the times she lived in, as well as acting as a revealing look at the changing face of photography through the decades.