Sam passed away with only about 2.5% of his collectable grade archive signed. Sam, while not giving much thought to future legacy management was without doubt a master printer. All the silver gelatin prints offered here were processed and printed by him. The darkroom offered a critical final stage in the sequence that led to his creative intentions. These are either vintage (printed within a year or two of being taken) or later, which generally means ‘lifetime’ but it is known that Sam made a batch of later prints c1980 of select images. He stopped having a wet darkroom in 2000/2001 with the move to Austalia so that marked the final point of silver gelatin print production apart from 3rd party printing for his late career fashion shoots. During all the years of running a studio with a darkroom he did not print formal silver gelatin editions nor did he sell vintage prints in his lifetime, he printed on demand when collectors asked him for prints. The main purpose for the vintage prints were production of the book maquettes (four copies for each of the four 60’s titles) so in a very real sense the vintage works in the archive were what was left over when the maquettes had been made plus a handful of images (not in the books) made for sheer creative satisfaction and not available on the market until years after Sam’s passing. The vintage prints are therefore organically limited and the signed copies are hyper rare.

There are also signed pigment (inkjet) prints which have the attraction of digital restoration, archival credentials and the gorgeous mat Hähnemühle paper that Sam said made his prints look like lithographs. The rarity is stated in each case.