All that Christmas and New Year stuff is behind us and we drive, full speed ahead, into 2014. And our vehicle of choice is a cross between a stretch limo and a country bus. There are plenty of potential prompts to be found in this image which comes from the collection of the Royal Australian Historical Society on Flickr Commons : cars, buses, dams, men in white coats. As usual, all you have to do is to post a post based around an old image on or around Saturday 4 January 2014 and then link that post to the Linky List below. Try and visit as many of the other people posting as possible and thus keep the Sepia Bus moving.
Here is a look ahead at the theme images for the rest of January so that you have plenty of time to plan ahead.
210 : Old photographs hidden away in a book.
211 : A soldier from the Great War - 100 years after the event.
212 : Let it snow and get out those skis.
You might like to think about those future calls whilst you wait for the bus. But don't wait too long, there it is, coming around the corner.
Welcome to the Christmas and New Year edition of Sepia Saturday. By tradition we relax the rules (what rules?) for posting over the holiday season and just ask you to post your post and link it to the list at any time over the next couple of weeks. For the "themers" amongst us we also give you the widest possible interpretation of the seasonal theme. In effect, what our Christmas and New Year edition of Sepia Saturday does is provide you with the opportunity of sending out a Sepia Christmas Card to all your fellow Sepians, and the time and opportunity to get around every Sepian to wish them Seasonal Greetings. Our normal weekly calls will resume with Sepia Saturday 209 on the 4th January. Here is a quick preview of the next two Sepia Calls.
209 : By now, you don't need any suggestions from me. Search the image and find your own theme.
210 : Now search your books and find those old photographs
That is it. That was 2013. I like to think it was a good Sepia Year, we had some great themes and some fine posts. And we had our 200th celebrations and our own special book. Let us hope that 2014 is as enjoyable and creative. A very Happy Christmas and a Wonderfully Sepia New Year to you all.
This is a picture of Liverpool which I found on a CD of copyright-free archive images. What I like in particular is how it ignores all the golden rules of photography : there is a strong vertical lamp-post dividing the image in two, your eye is not guided around the image by the composition but invited to take a running jump off the edge and for good measure, the central feature of the image - the cyclist - is out of focus. But what it reminds me of, is the fact that here on Sepia Saturday we don't celebrate great photographs, we celebrate great history. So it is time to bring out more of your curiosities, the odd compositions, the crimes against perspective, the thumb in front of the lens. If you come from a long line of great photographers, you could always concentrate on monuments, cyclists, removal vans, or the tunnel which is just to the left of this photograph. The choice is yours - there are few golden rules of Sepia Saturday. Just post your post on or around Saturday 14 December and then link it to the list below.
Christmas is around the corner and we have a Festive Sepia Fortnight for SS 208, whereas the regular weekly schedule returns with SS 209. Here is a quick preview of what is in store.
208 : Celebrate Christmas with any festive themed image from the past
209 : By now, you don't need any suggestions from me. Search the image and find your own theme.
But that is all in the future. Concentrate on Sepia Saturday 207 for now. Get things in balance and maintain your focus and avoid tunnel vision at all costs.
For Sepia Saturday 206 - post your posts on or around 7 December 2013 - we are celebrating that great domestic institution : the apron. They can be flowered aprons, aprons dusted with bread flour, gear-oil coated aprons or any kind of apron you care to show us. Our theme image is called "Mother Of The Assembly Line" and comes from the Flickr stream of the US National Archives.
Before you rush off and put your aprons on, here is a glance into the future - the next two Sepia Saturday themes. As usual, our Christmas challenge will cover both Christmas and New Year and sepians can post their posts at any time over the festive season. Sepia Saturday will return to the normal weekly schedule with Sepia Saturday 209 on Saturday 4 January 2014
207 : Photos with strange compositions, passing cyclists, removal vans, tunnels (look carefully there is one there) - the choice is up to you.
208 : Celebrate Christmas with any festive themed image from the past
Before you go off to get your aprons, don't forget that the "Best Of Sepia Saturday" is now available. What better present to find beneath the tree on Christmas morning.
So here it is. At long last. Hot from the sepia presses!
The Best Of Sepia Saturday is now available. It has been published via Lulu books which means that it can easily be purchased from Lulu on-line stores in the USA, Canada, Australia, the UK and a host of other European countries. You should be able to get to the product page by following this LINK. You can get a preview of the first few pages of the book by clicking on the preview button. You can change from the UK store to other national stores by clicking on the little national flag icon.
At this stage, the book is just available in the black and white edition (with full colour covers) : unfortunately a colour edition isn't available in the format we are using, so to produce a full colour edition will mean quite a bit more reformating - and a substantial increase in the price of the finished product. But given the nature of the subject, I think the black and white edition looks quite good and is reasonably cheap to buy. If there is enough demand for a full colour edition we can revisit it as an option. At the moment, the book is only available direct from Lulu, but within the next week to ten days I will have completed the various checks to make it available via Amazon and Barnes and Noble worldwide. I will update you with progress on this as it happens. Try as I might, I was unable to make the final product genuinely profit-free (it would have complicated things no end and resulted into a complex price) and therefore I stand to make a few pence profit on each copy sold. If it is OK with you I will use any profits generated to go towards paying our Annual Linky fees.
So there we are. I hope you like it. I apologise for the delays and for the mistakes I suspect there might be in the final text. I will be officially launching the book by lifting a pint glass of ale at 9.00pm (GMT) this evening. I invite all my fellow contributors to join me at the virtual book launch party.
Thanks to you all for your support, encouragement and kind words. In particular, thanks to Marilyn for reading through the draft and spotting some important mistakes.
November comes to an end and all over the world men will be ridding themselves of facial hair as Movember - the annual, month-long event involving the growing of moustaches during the month of November to raise awareness of men's health issues, such as prostate cancer and other male cancers - also comes to an end. Our theme image this week comes from the Australian National Maritime Museum collection available via Flickr Commons and features an unknown swimmer with a rather fine moustache. For your theme you can go with swimmers, trophies or rather fine moustaches, or - as always - any interpretation you care to adopt. Just post your post on or around Saturday 30 November 2013 and link your post to the Linky List below.
Some news for those who do not follow our Facebook Group: our special "Best Of Sepia Saturday" book is now finished and just needs a few final checks. Hopefully, by next week, I should be able to let you know how you can order your copies. In other news, the Sepia Saturday Magazine on Flipboard seems to be working well and, if you haven't already done so, you can subscribe to the magazine for free by searching for it under my name (Alan Burnett). You can use the Flipboard App on most tablets and smartphones and on desktops operating Windows 8.1 and above.
Here are the details of the next two Sepia Saturday themes for those who like to shop early for Christmas.
206 : Aprons our our theme for this week. Ladies in aprons, men in aprons, airports with aprons.
207 : Photos with strange compositions, passing cyclists, removal vans, tunnels (look carefully there is one there) - the choice is up to you.
Those are for the future. For this week, keep a stiff upper lip, or a hairy upper lip, or a clean shaved upper lip - and post those posts and link those links.
Friday, of course, is the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President Kennedy. The 22 November 1963 is one of those dates where big history and small history collide : a date on which anyone alive at the time is supposed to be able to remember what they were doing when they heard the news. Other such dates would include events like Pearl Harbour or the subject of our theme image for Sepia Saturday 204 - the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. There are a variety of interpretation for the prompt : perhaps a photograph of what you were doing on that day in 1963, perhaps an important event in your life which will always act as a historical marker, perhaps a collection of strange and wonderful hats. Whatever your interpretation, post your post on or around Saturday 22 November 2013 and then link it to the list below.
Here is the usual preview of the next two Sepia Saturdays down the line:
205 : This week brings us to the end of November or, as it has become known in much of the world, Movember. Once again it is time to celebrate bearded ladies, moustachioed men, trophies or silly swimming suits.
206 : Aprons our our theme for this week. Ladies in aprons, men in aprons, airports with aprons.
That is for the future. For Sepia Saturday 204 just look out for those momentous moments, the moments where big history and small history collide.
Have you ever noticed how many photographs are taken in doorways? It might have been the desire to search out a convenient frame, but more likely it was the need to go in search of natural light in order to tease those silver salts into life. Whatever the reason, a lot of old photographs feature doorways and this provides our theme for Sepia Saturday 203 (Post your posts on or around Saturday 16 November and link to the list below). As usual, you can choose any of the elements of our theme image to follow - windows, number 11, small fat old ladies - although try not to be too insulting about the latter as that is my grandmother in the photograph!
Just a quick update on Sepia Saturday 200 : the cutting and pasting is at last finished and I am currently writing the introduction, so don't lose heart - the book will emerge in due course. And my usual apologies for all my tardiness and lateness during the course of the work.
Here is our usual look forward at the next two Sepia Saturday calls.
204 : It is 50 years since the assassination of JFK. It was one of those iconic moments in history, just like the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914. So photographs of momentous moments is one of our themes for this week, along with anything else you might find in the photograph.
205 : This week brings us to the end of November or, as it has become known in much of the world, Movember. Once again it is time to celebrate bearded ladies, moustachioed men, trophies or silly swimming suits.
But put assassinations and moustachinations to one side for the moment. For Sepia Saturday 203 we are asking you to frame yourself - well frame your great uncle Joe - open the door, and enter into the spirit of things.
Huge apologies for setting a new world record for the lateness of putting up the Sepia Saturday Call. I would love to be able to say that this was the result of becoming so involved in the editing of "The Best Of Sepia Saturday", that I have lost track of time : but I can't. It was a toxic cocktail of domestic chores and November lethargy which brought about a coagulation of the Sepia Saturday process. But fear not, I have prescribed myself some Sepia Warfarin in order to restart the creative flow and thus here - a little late but nevertheless peculiar - is our prompt for Sepia Saturday 202 (Post your posts on or around Saturday 9th November 2013). Our prompt image comes from the Flickr Commons collection of the National Media Museum and features a beach photographer, a woman, and Felix the Cat! (who say's I never give you plenty of theme options?). As usual, post your post and then link it to the Linky List below.
Before I sink back under the rice pudding skin of Autumnal lethargy, let me point you in the direction of the next two Sepia Saturday themes.
203 : Have you ever noticed how many photographs are taken in doorways? For Sepia Saturday 203 we are asking you to frame yourself - well frame your great uncle Joe - open the door, and enter into the spirit of things.
204 : It is 50 years since the assassination of JFK. It was one of those iconic moments in history, just like the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914. So photographs of momentous moments is one of our themes for this week, along with anything else you might find in the photograph.
Back to Sepia Saturday 202 now. Take a look at that prompt image again and notice how the eyes of Felix the Cat follow you around the room. Spooky. Sepia Spooky.
First of all, a massive thank you for all your contributions to Sepia Saturday 200. We had a fabulous selection of entries and they really did represent "the very best of Sepia Saturday". During the coming week I will be putting the first draft of the commemorative book together and getting in touch with individual contributors if there is anything I need to check or revise. Hopefully by the weekend I will be able to update you on progress. If you didn't manage to get a contribution posted over the weekend but still want to have something in the book, get in touch with me as soon as possible.
Sepia Saturday 201
Houses are such an important part of all our lives, be they big or small, stone or wood, brick or turf. Along with babies, weddings and great auntie Edith, houses must be one of the top photographic subjects of all time. Our theme photograph this week features the rather splendid Robert Goelet House from Newport, Rhode Island which is featured in the Cornell University Library stream on Flickr Commons. So all you need to do is to hunt out your old photographs of houses - or anything else related to this weeks' theme image - and feature them in a post that you publish on or around Saturday 2nd November. Once published, add the link to the list below. Before you start laying the foundations for your post this week, take a look at what is to come over the next couple of weeks.
202 : Photographer, beach, camera, tripod, and even Corky The Cat - there is so much going on in Sepia Saturday 202 that it is a theme for all seasons.
203 : Have you ever noticed how many photographs are taken in doorways? For Sepia Saturday 203 we are asking you to frame yourself - well frame your great uncle Joe - open the door, and enter into the spirit of things.
But before you go off into the future, it is time to return home - return to the house of memories.
Trumpet fanfares : My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen. Welcome to that celebration of old and curious photographs that is known throughout the world as Sepia Saturday. Indeed, welcome to a very special Sepia Saturday, because four years and 199 themes ago, Sepia Saturday was born. And we are celebrating this important anniversary by asking everybody who has ever joined in with Sepia Saturday to look back on their contributions and choose a favourite one. Simply republish that favourite Sepia post and we will gather together all the contributions and publish them in a little "The Best Of Sepia Saturday" book which will be available for anyone to buy on-line. As you would expect from Sepia Saturday, there are very few rules and regulations involved in this special Sepia Saturday post. It can be any of your Sepia Saturday posts, but unfortunately we will have to limit it to one per participant. If you would like to amend or update the post, that is fine so long as it remains recognisably related to the original post. I would also like to include a short paragraph about each of the contributors - something along the lines of the Blogger profiles that appear on most of our blogs.
All I ask is that, if you are willing to participate in the "Best Of Sepia Saturday" book project you let me know in a comment to this call along with any short biography you want me to use. If you do say that you want to participate I will take this to mean that you are giving us permission to use any copyright material included in the specific post you are contributing. If, for any reason, you are not able to participate this weekend but would still like to take part in the project, let us know as soon as possible and we will try and work something out. If you don't want to participate in the book project, you are, of course, welcome to contribute any Sepia Saturday post you want to submit for this week's call. Whether they are for the book or not, the process remains the same : post your posts on or near Saturday 26th October 2013 and then link it to the list below. But this time, if you want to participate in the celebration book, don't forget to leave us a note via a comment below saying you want in and including a couple of sentences of biographical information. I am around all week so I will keep a close eye on the comments and on the Facebook Page and try to answer any questions as they arise.
Before you dash off and start searching through your archives of your archives, here is a quick preview of the next two Sepia Saturday calls:
201 : Houses are such an important part of all our lives, be they big or small, stone or wood, brick or turf. So this week we celebrate our ancestral homes in old photographs.
202 : Photographer, beach, camera, tripod, and even Corky The Cat - there is so much going on in Sepia Saturday 202 that it is a theme for all seasons.
Those two will see Sepia Saturday launched into its' fifth year. But before we move off into the future it is time to look back at the past : our sepia past here on Sepia Saturday.
Hey, let's put on a show! The desire to dress up, lark around in public, utter words that you would not normally recognise, is as old as the hills - or at least as old as a string of Judy Garland films. Sepia Saturday 199 celebrates the theatre, be it professional or amateur, serious or comic, situated below a proscenium arch or behind a kitchen table. Dressing up, dressing down, acting daft or acting dreadfully - they all form part of the script for Sepia Saturday 199 (post your posts on or around Saturday 19th October 2013 and add a link to the linky list below). Our archive theme image was taken in 1914 in Waterford in Ireland and it has been suggested that it might be the cast of an amateur performance of the Pirates of Penzance.
Before the curtain comes up on Sepia Saturday 199, let me add a few words about our very special Sepia Saturday 200. As I mentioned last week, our prompt for Sepia Saturday 200 looks back on some of the 199 Sepia Saturdays that have gone before. And to make it a special occasion we are inviting you to pick your favourite Sepia Saturday contribution - that is one of your posts and not one of someone else - and repost it for Sepia Saturday 200. And what I would like to do is to collect together all those contributions and publish them in a small "Best of Sepia Saturday" book which will then be available for any Sepians to buy on a non-profit basis. We could do this on one of the "publish on demand" operations that are widely available now, preferably one such as Lulu which has availability throughout the world. I would like to know what you think of the idea and any suggestions you might have. Obviously I would only include the posts of those who choose to participate in the book and I would require you to give me your permission to republish the text and images of the particular post you are contributing. If you like the idea, we will finish up with a nice little keepsake of our Sepia Saturday activities and even a little book that we can give to our friends and families for Christmas. Let me know what you think in either comments to this post or on the Sepia Saturday Facebook Group.
And the world doesn't end with Sepia Saturday 200 : here is a preview of Sepia Saturday 201.
201 : Houses are such an important part of all our lives, be they big or small, stone or wood, brick or turf. So this week we celebrate our ancestral homes in old photographs.
There is lots for you to think about there, but don't think for too long at the moment - the curtain is now going up on Sepia Saturday 199. "There's no business like sepia business ..."
It is 100 years since HMS Queen Elizabeth was launched at Portsmouth. Whilst this is not the Queen Elizabeth, it matters not, because in Sepia Saturday 198 we celebrate the start of something new. It might be a life, it might be a love, it might be a a new chicken coop or it might be a mighty ocean liner. In the case of our current photograph it was HMAS Albatross the Royal Australian Navy's first seaplane carrier which was launched in February 1928 at Cockatoo Island Dockyard in Sydney. The photograph, which was taken by Sam Hood (1872-1953) and forms part of the Australian National Maritime Museum's stream on Flickr Commons. If you have a picture of a launch of a battleship in your collection, feel free to share it, but a photograph of anything new, anything beginning or anything that floats on water will do. Simply post your post on or around Saturday 12 October 2013 and add a link to the list below.
On a personal note, can I thank everyone for being so understanding during my low profile over recent weeks (and a special thank you to Marilyn for keeping things going so well). I have now had my hand operation and I am able to free myself of the annoying splint for longer periods of time. Hopefully I can join in fully with Sepia Saturday this week. And I can start planning for the big anniversary we have just around the corner. For those who also like to plan ahead, here is a preview of the next two Sepia Saturday calls.
199 : For Sepia Saturday 199 we celebrate acting and theatre. And dressing up, and silly hats, and daft trousers, and fire escapes, and - anything else you fancy.
200 : Here it is Sepia Saturday 200. Our prompt looks back at some of the Sepia prompts we have had in the previous 200 weeks. It provides you with an opportunity to revisit your favourite Sepia Saturday contribution.
Before you start thinking about future Sepia Saturday posts, make a start on your contribution for Sepia Saturday 198. Start at the beginning, launch your ideas and commence your post.
