Lots of great reply's and thoughts so far. Although like Emiliano pointed out, my question here is more on putting a signature or not putting a signature on our photographs (not talking about the actual turnings) before sharing the photo's online. Like most of you, I do sign my work on the bottom and I think most of us agree that as we grow as artist's /woodturners & craftsman, at some point we do start signing our work and decide for ourselves that we want to and should. So, I guess for me, since personally, I feel I should sign the bottom of my work in most cases and have made that decision for myself to sign my work, and with that in my mind, why would we, not, want our signature on our photos as well, unless its already visible on the turning in the photos?
Not that I am very good at photography and or presentation and I am still growing and improving as an artist craftsman and woodturner. But, as I am still learning and evolving, the more I evolve the more I understand that photographing our work and presentation of our work is more and more important. Especially with everyone now having more and more of an online presence. Correct me if I am wrong but doesn't adding our signature to our photographs of our work, not have the same effect in a lot of ways as signing the bottom of our work? And, also have some social media benefits as well. Like, helping people recognize our work easier and at a glimpse - helping to set our work and our name apart from the other 1000+ items on google or social media or woodturning sites or wherever you like to share - I believe it in some ways, maybe, helps slow the spread of plagiarism or people just using /sharing our photo's without giving credit to the creator (that seems to be growing these days)
I personally feel that by adding my signature on my work itself, that I am not trying to say I am better than or even as good as any other woodturner or artist or creator or hobbyist or craftsman that is adding a signature, but, That I am proud of what I have created and that I hope someone else enjoys it too and maybe just maybe they remember my name and will want to see more of what I make.
So - back to the original question I assume quite a few of you feel this way as well? So, why do not more of us not add their signature to their photos? I suspect a lot of us (myself included) are still adapting to the ever changing online world --hence this post (because that's me in a lot of ways) and my desire to understand and research this more as honestly - I personally am on the fence about adding a signature to the photography of my work, I don't consider myself as a professional like a lot of those I see adding a signature are and am not wanting to even try and compare myself to them. But at the same time I do feel that in this day and age it is becoming more and more something we should be doing.
