"Sheldon" wrote in
:

Where is the best place to sign framed photos? I would think the
place would be on the matte, but recently I saw a photo that was
mounted to a board, and the matte was made larger than the mounted
photo. The photo was signed inside the matte on the mounting board
(between the photo and the matte).

Also, is it unprofessional to just leave a framed photo unsigned, and
should every framed photo for sale be signed?

Thanks.

Sheldon



Eugene Smith had a trick that worked well with silver emulsion prints.
He would use a stylus (fine pointed burnishing tool) and write his name
in the emulsion right in the image. Looking at the print straight on it
was not visible, especially when it came to reproduction. But if you
turned the print at an angle to a light source, the signature became
visible. I'm not famous enough to get away with that, but I experimented
with it on ink jet prints (Epson). It works, kind of. But the surface
of the paper does not have the kind of depth that a silver emulsion print
does and it looks obvious. I just cut a matte a half cm larger than the
picture and write my name lightly in the lower right hand corner making
it as unobtrusive as possible.