How do you sign your prints?

[Laura_Campbell]

I have two rubber ink stamps that I put on the back of the print, well below the image area. One allows me to fill in the title, year, medium, and edition number. The second stamp provides details like paper type and weight, etching ink, and that it was hand pulled by me. All writing is done in pencil, and in between the stamps, I sign my name, with my location.

I used to sign the front of the print, below the image area, but stopped doing this because I began to feel it distracts from the image.

[William McEwen]

Mounted prints:
On the back:
I title and date in pencil (including the year the print was made)

I rubber stamp my name and address + copyright info.

If the print is for a friend or loved one, I usually write a personal note of some kind. I think Stieglitz influenced me here.

I used to sign the front of the mount right underneath the print. Just as instructed by Picker, Adams, etc. But I stopped. I like the overmat to be right to the image, and my signature doesn’t need to be there.

(It makes me a little crazy when I see signatures on overmats. The mat could be removed and put over anything. And it will have your signature on it.)


Unmounted prints (press prints, etc):
I never sign them. I stamp them with my copyright info + address, and usually write the title on it in pencil.

[Joanna Carter]

Can someone point us to an archival ink pen that doesn't write too dark? I want the effect of a pencil signature but, on RC (silver or inkjet) paper, pencils don't work too well.

[anchored]

Joanna, The brand of archival ink pens I use for signing prints:

Prismacolor "Premier" Fine Line Markers. Comes in sets of assorted colors (what I use... so can choose sig color based on print colors) or sold individually. I buy from a local art supply store. Advertised as "Acid-Free, Lightfast, and Archival Quality."

Made in Japan (what? not China???... Amazing) by "Sanford Brands."

Package advertises web address to be (I haven't been to look to verify site or products):

www.prismacolor.com

Glenn

[anchored]

An addition to the above:

Prismacolor also makes gold ink pens. The Premier pens are 0.5mm fine lines. Also tried ink/paint pens made by "DecoColor" but had problems with flow.

[Milton Tierney]

I’ve tried to find am archival ink pen source, but without luck. The gold pens I’ve seen look sloppy and doesn’t produce a good signature. When I was doing wet prints I would dry mount my prints sign the back and sign the inner mat.

Now, I’ve stopped wet printing and jump over to the digital prints. With digital prints I can add my signature to the image with Photoshop. I’ve been testing out the look on a number of color and b/w prints. Depending on the image, if I adjust the signature size and layer opaqueness from 25 to 80% it doesn’t distract from the image. I have two signature layers, one black and one white. Obviously, you can not do this with wet printing. I’ve been trying to find out if signing the image is acceptable or not among photo enthusiasts.

[BetterSense]

Sorry, but I find a digitally generated signature completely ironic, faintly humorous, and bordering on dishonest. That's just my opinion, though. Clearly the scope of what is acceptable is a matter of consensus and culture, and I wouldn't pretend to be "up" on what currently passes.

[Milton Tierney]

Good point! When I was wet processing I normally dry mount and double mat the print. Sign, write the year and name of the image on the inner mat in pencil and sign the back in pen with the same info. Now I only use my printer to make prints. I tried not signing the mats, but I would get customers asking for my signature. Which means I would have to open the package sign it and put it back in without the sticky envelope flap catching the print. Past two exhibits I’ve had fellow photographers tell me that signing the mat is no longer kosher and I should sign the print. From the response to this post it seems to be a matter of taste.

[Milton Tierney]

Hmmmmm! Something to think about. Digital signature is something I’m toying with and like to get other views, good or bad. I’ve always done it old school in the past with a pencil on the mat. Now I only do digital prints. I do not like signing the image with a pen, I feel later on the pens ink can cause discoloration. Digital signature seems a better alternative. Bordering on dishonesty, you need to clarify that one for me. I have a think skin, so NO insult taken. I’m always fishing for other photographers views of my work. If I do not hear the bad, then I cannot make my work better.

[BetterSense]

What does a signature mean to you? To me it means that somebody physically produced and "signed off" the art object. That's what gives it authenticity. The signature is not there for decoration. You can't get a signed ansel adams print anymore because he is dead. He himself never signed prints for reproduction, only fine prints that he made himself. If you didn't physically write the signature there is no point in putting it there because it is not fulfilling its expected purpose as a signature. But then, maybe it's appropriate for a digital print because you didn't really print the picture either, your computer did. Why not add a digital signature so that you don't even have to bother manually signing the thing with a device so crude as a pen or pencil? Why, you might even mess up the signature, and it wouldn't look exactly the same every time. As you can probably tell, I'm behind the times and out of the loop. I don't understand why fine-art photographers are so eager to join the commercial marketplace in a race to the bottom. I would have expected them to esteem their work more, but maybe that bit about photography not being "real art" for all those decades was truer than I thought. Much of what passes as acceptable and even desirable in the conglomerate field of multi-media-which-is-sold-as-photography just racks my brain as trivialization and kitsch. I'm not accusing anyone in particular but I'm just saying that the idea that digitally adding a signature to a print isn't seen as just silly is a symptom of changing photographic values which I'm clearly not in sync with.