Digital BW, The Print

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., Todd Flashner 
<tflash@e...> wrote: 
> Interesting. As a collector I'd want the first print of every edition, 
AND
> it's the cheapest.

Also, that's an interesting link that Jerry posted:

http://www.tfaoi.com/articles/andres/aa4.htm

I printed it out and I'm going to fax it to my gallery to see what she 
says about this "Certificate of Authenticity".

For me, I have been playing around with dabbing my thumb into 
a pile of lead pencil trimmings, to get a thumbprint thing going. I 
press my thumb into the area just below my signature. Ink 
seemed to be too strong and dark, but lead seems about right; 
kinda light grey. Just to show that I made the print. I think I started 
to notice this factor when I started looking at EWeston prints; 
those "vintage" prints were made by him, and then those other 
ones followed later, made by his son. The vintage ones always 
seemed so much "better"; but that's probably only my projection. 
I'm sure they were technically fine, maybe even better tonally. But 
to know that EW made them, with that wacky setup in that cabin 
in Carmel, just made them SO much sweeter.

I also seem to want to put TWO dates on a print -- the year the 
photograph was shot, and then the year the print was made. I've 
been doing something like "2001/2001".

I guess the idea of this official form -- the Certificate of 
Authenticity -- addresses all these questions. On some level, if I 
was a collector, and I was writing a check for thousands of 
dollars, why not ask for some kind of officially regarded 
document; almost like a Title to a car.

It'll be interesting to see what this gallery says. She might just 
laugh at the idea.

-MT