One camera and one exposure lead to many questions in Ross den Otter鈥檚 Strathcona studio 鈥� the point behind his Photographer-Assisted Selfies open house as part of Capture Photography Festival Saturday afternoon.
The 麻豆传媒映画lens-based artist made all the artistic decisions behind the portrait sessions except for activating the shutter on his large format camera. The kind of film, the format, the type of camera, processing the film, printing and providing the venue 鈥� all den Otter鈥檚. Triggering the camera鈥檚 shutter was done by the person in front of the lens by gently pulling a piece of string attached to the homemade shutter made out of a wooden panel and some aluminum from the hardware store and light-sealed by recycled fabric from his wife鈥檚 worn-out pajamas.
鈥淭here鈥檚 a whole series of things involved but that one element of timing may shift the authorship,鈥� said den Otter. Having the subject responsible for pressing the shutter created questions about ownership and copyright 鈥� an interesting study considering almost everybody with a smartphone has asked a stranger to take a photo with it at some point.
鈥淣ormally when you鈥檙e doing a selfie, you鈥檙e not going to be doing it on a 4x5 camera. I picked a camera that鈥檚 unlikely to be used on your vacation. You鈥檙e not going to be packing this and asking somebody, 鈥楬ey, would you mind taking a photo of me and my wife?鈥� This is a little more complicated,鈥� he said. 鈥淭he selfie stick involved in this one is somewhat unwieldy, it鈥檚 a large chunk of lumber you鈥檝e got to carry around.鈥�
Joking aside, the issue of authorship is a real one. Case in point in popular culture is the celebrity group shot taken at the 2014 Oscars with Ellen DeGeneres鈥� smartphone. According to U.S. copyright law, the photo 鈥� famous because it broke the record for most retweets at the time 鈥� doesn鈥檛 belong to DeGeneres, the camera鈥檚 owner, but instead to the person who took it 鈥� the evidently long-armed Bradley Cooper.
So, while den Otter made the decision to use the old-fashioned Cambo camera with a box of old film given to him by a friend and spent the time rigging the camera with a Second World War aerial reconnaissance lens and a gravity-powered shutter, the photograph could very well belong to the subject because they pulled the string to release the shutter. But never fear, den Otter has thought this through and had his subjects sign a release form ensuring him of copyright ownership.
Creating the Photographer Assisted Selfies project took much thought, even beyond the sticky question of ownership.
鈥淚 was thinking about choices and the idea of handing somebody the responsibility of taking a photo of themselves and paralleling that to the ideas that we may have towards the end of our lives,鈥� den Otter said. 鈥淭his is somewhat tied to my dad鈥檚 last days. He made some choices that probably affected his health in somewhat catastrophic ways.鈥�
His father died in January 2016 of organ failure. During the sad lead-up, his son found himself maneuvering through decisions made by other people. So den Otter, in the middle of a conflux of choices along the way, put much thought into the relationship between decisions and outcomes as a result. With his father still very much on his mind, den Otter decided to experiment with developing some test prints with the old film 鈥� he calls it 鈥渟wamp film鈥� because it鈥檚 thin and weak 鈥� by developing it in a mixture of beer, washing soda and instant coffee. While Grolsch was used because that was the last beer his father drank, it didn鈥檛 have enough reducing acids to process the film properly. Den Otter figures he鈥檒l go back to souping with Guinness beer as he suspects it contains more vitamin C and alpha acids than the Dutch beer (the acids from the hops react to the silver in the film and the vitamin C acts as a stabilizer).
鈥淚 was thinking about the little interventions and how they change an outcome. It parallels to making the subject responsible for the timing,鈥� den Otter said. 鈥淭he choices we make here run parallel to the choices that led to my dad鈥檚 death.鈥�
The viewing and discussion for the Photographer-Assisted Selfies project is April 29 at Pink Monkey Studios, 830 Union Street, from noon to 4 p.m. Capture runs until the end of April. Check out capturephotofest.com for more information.
