Camera Work - Signatures

The article Signatures by Eva Watson-Schutze was published in Camera Work Issue 1 on pages 35 and 36 in 1903. This magazine is focused around showcasing good photography, and is littered with articles about photography and how to create high-quality photos. At this time, photography as an art wasn't really cemented yet. This magazine seeked in part to solidify photography as a fine art, and the article Signatures is a great representation of that. The article itself is focused around talking about how important properly imbedding your signature into your photograph is. Watson-Schutze argues that an embedded, subtle signature can add to the piece instead of taking attention away from the main subject. This is a great example of the start of the shift from looking at photography purely as a way to document and record things to a form of art. The article is focused specifically on telling the reader how important making your signature match the photo is (and how jarring it is when your signature is just plastered on) and giving a few tips on how to make signatures look good. The author is focused more around the form of the photo than the function, showing that photographs are starting to be seen more as an art.