Why You Should Sign And Date Signatures And Photos

Problems
How old was I then? Was that in our first house? What was the name of the hotel? Who are these people?

Answers
I now label photos and paintings with my name, the date, and the place.

On the back of the photo you can stick a detailed label. A smaller one on the front can be seen when the photo is framed, and is security in case the label falls of the back. You might not have space on the front and not want to damage the picture's surface.

In a painting you don't have much space and don't want to distract.

I have experimented with putting my name on a poster as part of the picture. Some artists like to use a symbol. Two different people have used a mouse. One was a carver in the north of England.

Stories
1 I have a photo of a wedding group in a back garden in the East End of London. I wish I could identify it.

Is a member of my family in it? Could it be my grandmother's wedding?

I don't recognize the bride nor any of the people. Maybe it's a member of my mother in law's family? But, if so, it's also a member of my extended family, because I married a second cousin (my husband's late mother was my late mother's first cousin.)

I have labelled the back of the photo '1910?' I was going through my family history and noted the date of my grandmother's wedding, 1910. (My mother was born in 1912, two years later.) I have a photo of the wedding couple on the upstairs landing of their house. She is not the same woman as the bride in the photo.  She is wearing different clothes.

2 Why did she not label the photo at the time? Most people do not label wedding photos. The bride and groom know each other and their parents. But the photos will be kept and passed on to grandchildren. By the time the grandchildren are teenagers or in their twenties and interested to look at the photos, or do family tree research, the grandparents will probably be dead, their full first names, surnames, maiden names, and married surnames not recalled, especially if the grandchildren knew granny as as 'Nan' or Bubba' or 'Granny Sally'.

3 I was talking to a group on one of my themes, Why You Should Write Your Family History. I showed a picture of my wedding and told the audience they should label their wedding photos. I turned over my photo and realised that I had not labelled my own wedding photo! I have now remedied that.

4 My full maiden name is Hazel Angela Lansbury. That's a lot to put on a drawing. I dropped the Hazel after I left school where teachers called me Hazel and fellow pupils had nicknamed me Nut.
(When I looked for a name for a publishing house or a stage name for performing comic poetry I found that Hazel Nut is copyrighted as a brand name by all the nut producers. I had to quickly take Hazel Nutter, which is fine for comedy, being amusing, but too silly for any other business.)

Signature
I needed to condense my name to fit into a tiny space when drawing caricatures in the small notebooks, A6 or postcard size. I often drew the picture, then found very little space in the corners for my signature.

I now have a new system. When I remember, I sign the page before I start drawing. This has two advantages:
1 I leave sufficient space for the signature and date.
2 I don't forget.
3 The person being drawn getting impatient or called away, or the event end, doesn't make me close the sketch book quickly before I have time to finish.
4 I can discuss the location or my signature as a distraction to the sitter to get them used to sitting without starting with the nerve-wracking and tense instructions to sit still and look this way commands.

Abbreviating My Signature
At first I abbreviated my signature to Angela. But there are many people called Angela. When I tried to get Angela, combined with London, recalling the author Jack London, I found that at least a dozen people already had that idea. That's why my email is not Angela but Anna. I decided to change my signature from Angela to Angella. That also combines ANGELA and LA nsbury.

You might like to remember that when looking at my signature, or when creating your own, or suggesting a name for a person, or business.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author, illustrator. I have many posts on painting and destinations. Please bookmark and share your favourite posts.

Badges At Hotels And Conferences - save them and re-use them

Many hotels and conferences give you a badge, sometimes on a free lanyard. They might ask you to return the badge or lanyard or both so that the organisers can use the items again. Often they cannot use the lanyard again because it has the date of the event, so next year's lanyard will be a different colour, for novelty, or to go with a new theme or venue, and with a different date.

If the badge is not collected, I save the badge in my suitcase for my next trip. But then, I am a hoarder and recycler. Many people are tidy minded and hate clutter and like to travel light and prefer to give back an unwanted badge. But I carefully keep mine.

At my next networking event, if I arrive before the badges are given out, or no badges are given out, I have one ready to wear. On a recent trip I was given a badge in the name I did not want to use. I was at a writing conference and wanted to use my writer's name which was on the books I was offering for sale in the book room. If your name is wrongly spelling, or the badge shows your married name instead of your maiden name or business name, you might find it handy to swap over the cards.

Swapping the cards is also a handy option if the new conference offers cards which are typed and in small writing and your previous card had bold felt tip pen writing which could be seen at a distance. You might also prefer a neat Italic script, rather than untidy handwriting.

If you don't like the writing on the card you have been given, sometimes you can reverse it. If it is double size and folded in half, turn it inside out.

Some lanyards and cards are designed with the name on both sides, so that if the lanyard is put on back to front or turns itself, the writing is still visible.

You could keep a stencil in your luggage or briefcase or the laptop bag if you are likely to want to add your name or company name to a badge.

Failing all else, you can insert your business card, or a return address sticker, on a blank card.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer.