Thanks to my ongoing obsession with Austin Kleon, I purchased a rubber stamp this week. My idea was to get something I could use to mark my working photos. Especially since my Japan photo book completely sold out this week, I wanted to try to reappropriate the proof prints in some way. I went to a local shop near my studio, and the next day I had my “PROOF” rubber stamp.

It’s a curious word, proof. Photographers or printers use it to denote a working version of a print; something not intended to be the final work to be seen, shared or sold. However, the word also has there, nicer, broader meanings and uses. Evidence for one. A photo, in many ways, is proof, isn’t it? Evidence that I was somewhere, I saw this thing, and I documented it photographically, thus providing proof of… what? It’s existence? My existence? All of this and more?

I then started to think about proof in an even broader sense. The rubber stamp could be used to validate, to empower, to prop up, to sway a viewer. The bold red ink, the all caps san serif typeface, set in 42pt Helvetica Bold; it’s screams of validation. Of existence. PROOF.

I think I’ll be using this stamp much more than I originally intended.