Is it a self-portrait?

[Pieter12]

Is it a self-portrait if you set up the camera, etc, but someone else trips the shutter?

 

[MattKing]

Yes - assuming you are in and the subject of the picture .
But if you hand your camera to someone else and then put them in charge of what you, they and the lighting does, it is their work.

 

[awty]

That would be so much easier.

 

[Don_ih]

What's more important - the idea and direction of the photo or the mechanics of activating the shutter? Getting someone else to press the shutter is not much different from using a self-timer.

 

[awty]

What's more important - the idea and direction of the photo or the mechanics of activating the shutter? Getting someone else to press the shutter is not much different from using a self-timer.

From my experience, a self timer is not only more reliable, but it doesn't ask any dumb questions.

 

[Don_ih]

This thread made me go reading a bunch of stuff about Cindy Sherman, because I remembered that, for some of her photos, other people pressed the shutter. An example:

#48 - her father pressed the shutter.

But then, her photos -- can they actually be called "self-portraits"?