photomontage - sort of

Hi,
I have two primitive photograph-postcards made in internment camps during the '40s. A title "happy new year" was added to the photograph by writing on the negative. That's not photomontage, since this technique involves cutting and pasting (or so I guess) parts of photographs, but it's still something done at the same stage. How would you call the technique?

 

Ruth, Could you post photos or scans of the postcards? It would help, since I (at least) can't envision what they look like.

 

[It doesn't really matter, but the pictures say 'memories from Cyprus' and 'regards from Cyprus' (not 'happy new year').]

 

Oh, are you asking whether there is a name for the technique of writing on the negative like this? I didn't understand that.

I don't know whether there is a name for it. I haven't heard one, but maybe a professional photographer would know.

 

Dunno but just read it had to be done on emulsion side so one had to write backwards. (Could explain the rather "clumsy" lettering above.)

Debora

 

This may be helpful.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autographic_film

Debora

 

Thanks Debora, I wonder if it works also for photographs.

 

When I did printing in a darkroom in college, we would placed the letters onto the image projected onto the paper from the enlarger, not on the negative. When the negative was exposed onto the paper, the lettering blocked the image in that area and the letter shapes were "burned in".