Certificates of authenticity for photography
Photography lives and dies by the edition: the same image may exist as several signed, numbered prints. Attesian certifies photographic work while being explicit that identity within an edition comes from the record, not the picture.
Register a photograph and it receives a signed certificate and an append-only provenance record. A collector can verify the work and its history instantly, and see clearly how the edition is structured.
Each print in an edition is its own registry item with its own certificate and history.
The genesis event records the photographer as the maker at the start of each item's record.
Sales and owners are appended per copy, so the provenance of one print never gets confused with another.
How image fingerprinting applies
Every print of a photographic edition shares one image and therefore one perceptual fingerprint — so the fingerprint verifies the picture, not which numbered copy you hold. A specific print's identity rests on the registry and attestation, which is exactly how editions should be treated.
Questions
- Does the fingerprint tell prints in an edition apart?
- No, and it does not claim to. All prints of an edition share the same image and fingerprint. The registry distinguishes copy 3/10 from copy 4/10 — the fingerprint only confirms the image itself.