FAIRBANKS — Twenty four years ago, the Fairbanks Arts Association began the 64th Parallel juried art exhibit to showcase local artists. Today, that show has become one of the more popular shows in the state representing art in many forms including clay, sculpture, mixed media, watercolor, drawing, pastels, video and photography. The Juror’s Choice exhibit, on display through Oct. 31 at the Bear Gallery in Pioneer Park, is made of 64 pieces by artists like Ree Nancarrow, Robby Mohatt, Don Murphy and honorable mentions Rachel Mulvihill and Sarah Holm.

For his stunning portraits, aspiring photographer Adam Ottavi won the Jurors Choice Award, the highest honor at the annual exhibition.

Ottavi moved to Alaska from Chicago in 2002 and worked on an independent photo documentary for two years. After a few years in New York City, Ottavi returned to Alaska in 2008 and is working on his Masters degree in photography at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks.

His photographic projects center around portraits.

“People have always fascinated me personally and photographically,” he said. “Importantly, I strive to make portraits that do not edify stereotypes and that favor formal elements.”

The 64th Parallel showcase displays Ottavi’s finest portraits of people who aren’t necessarily celebrities in Fairbanks, but are certainly familiar from day to day acquaintances. The photos are of the people seen in grocery stores, working at coffee shops, on the college campus or anywhere around town. There’s something personal in that, in the sense that these are people who make up Fairbanks’ community and reflect a range of diverse backgrounds.

“I would see people all the time who seemed perfect for the project, just every day kinds of people,” he said. “I wanted to capture a certain sense of intimacy with these people so when I saw them I would immediately ask them if I could photograph them.

“As individuals, I think the portraits can only say so much, but when you group them together and displayed on a grid, they appeared far more interesting,” he added. “We can’t help it, but we have to compare facial features and find their similarities, it made for a much more powerful display.”

Surprisingly, he wasn’t rejected by a single subject.

“I think people respect a photographer who shows them what their working on, and the image quality was really nice so it wasn’t such a tough sell,” he said.

Part of Ottavi’s winning formula comes from the “old-school” developing process he used on his film.

Ottavi used a 19th century process, known as an ambrotype, that requires an intricate developing process where he used colodian, the same substance used in medical dressings, and mixed it with ether and alcohol and applied to glass plates. The negatives are then treated with silver, and exposed and developed while still wet.

“It makes skin tones look almost metallic,” he said. “If you photograph fresh corn it looks almost bronze when developed because of the colodian. It’s beautiful.”

He said he was attracted by how the developing process records color, calling the resulting tone both “amazing and unique. The whole process of making an ambrotype is very magical,” he said. “It’s very romantic — the whole experience, from beginning to end— because you really get a one-of-a-kind, gem of an image.”

The process also involves using a mercury vapor to develop the image, which was established soon after the Civil War in the late 1860s. It’s the exact technique used during the 19th century, which is what captivated Ottavi in the first place.

“It’s a labor of love,” he said of the whole process. “You can have these really unfortunate results and often times, you just have to go with whatever image you can get.”

He’s been working on portraits in general for the last couple years but said he’s been searching for the right medium. he said.

“I might have found it with the ambrotype,” he said. For Ottavi, he said It evokes a certain historical appreciation, yet it’s contemporary. “There’s a kind of marriage of the two worlds and I’m happy with it.”

Ottavi photographed about 50 people specifically close up, and found the majority of his subjects were caucasians with light hair and light eyes.

“I think the lighting really encouraged that,” he said. “I wasn’t planning on it.”

When he was taking photographs, Ottavi purposely worked with a wide lens and kept a close distance between him and his subject.

“There wasn’t much space between us and I think that helps in photographing people. If you’re far away and in a studio, people get more objectified but when you’re standing with them while they’re getting the photo, it’s like a third person is in the room and it becomes more interesting and more intimate,” he said. “When someone is looking directly at the camera, I think the viewer has a more immediate connection to the person,” he said.

Ottavi noted that while his work wasn’t groundbreaking by any means, it was personal and something unconventional by today’s technological standards.

“The photograph evokes memory, yet the image is somewhat immediate,” he said. “It looks both kind of dead and old and mysterious. It’s not too contemporary.”

The 64th Parallel showcase displays Ottavi’s finest portraits of people who aren’t necessarily celebrities in Fairbanks, but are certainly familiar from day to day acquaintances.

The photos are of the people seen in grocery stores, working at coffee shops, on the college campus or anywhere around town. There’s something personal about that, in the sense that these people in the photographs make up the Fairbanks community and depict such a wide span of diverse backgrounds.

“As individuals, I think the portraits can only say so much, but when you group them together and displayed on a grid, they appeared far more interesting,” he said. “We can’t help it, but we have to compare facial features and find their similarities, it made for a much more powerful display.”

Contact features writer Rebecca George at 459-7504.