An photo image depicting the suicide deaths of Columbine High School killers Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris is not meant to glamorize firearms but to show the struggles of young men caught up in a culture of gun violence, the exhibit's Australian photographer said Wednesday.

Eddie Major used two young male models who appear bare from the waist up and lying on the floor with blue paint splattered on the ground and water guns at their sides.

The photo, After Columbine, is on display at a nightclub in Adelaide in South Australia as part of the South Australian Living Artists Festival, which features up to 1,500 artists.

Major said at least one talk show host has described the image as disturbing, but that's not what he intended. "I'm not looking at it as an irrational alarmist," Major said by telephone from his home in Adelaide. "I think it's caused some concern when you have a gun culture as part of any society."

Major said he had been producing photographic art for the past five years, exploring "violence and masculinity in contemporary Western culture." His interest in firearms heightened considerably during a 2004 visit to Houston.

In Australia, access to guns has been heavily restricted after 35 people at a tourist cafe in Port Arthur were attacked in 1996 by a mentally ill man. While in Texas, Major said he was surprised by the proliferation of firearms.

"U.S. gun culture and masculinity were a fascinating culture to me," he said. "It was a very unusual experience to see how people are allowed to own handguns and a variety of automatic weapons."

Major felt it was important to highlight in his photograph the disconnect some adolescents - such as Klebold and Harris - experience with the rest of society.

"Growing young men don't speak about how they're feeling and how their role models are in society," he said.

The use of the water pistols in his photograph, he said, is meant to illustrate the transition from toy guns that children play with to firearms when they become older. The blue paint on the floor is supposed to illustrate sterility, mystery and suspicion.

Klebold and Harris killed 12 classmates and a teacher in 1999 before taking their own lives.

Joe Kechter, the father of a murdered Columbine High student, Matthew, said it would be difficult for him to comment on something he had not seen.