This week here on Sepia Saturday we are celebrating things that get in the way. They can, of course, be anything that gets in the way of a good photograph - someone who walks into shot, a passing bus, a stray thumb, or, in the case of our theme image, a bit of rope. And don't worry, if this silly theme is getting in the way of you sharing a fine old photograph, you can always ignore it completely. However you ignore things that get in the way, ignore them on or around Saturday 29th November 2025 and add a link to the list below. And don't let me get in the way of this reminder of what is still to come this year on Sepia Saturday.
For want of something better, I have given this week's prompt image the title "Bridges To Nowhere". The photograph comes from the extensive collection of my Uncle Frank, and shows a very decorative bridge across a seaside boating lake. As it leads simply from one side of the lake to the other, I suppose you can say that it is a bridge to nowhere, but that is not something that can be said about old photographs in general. Old photographs provide us with a bridge to somewhere, and that somewhere is the past. So, once again, we ask you to share your old photographs here on Sepia Saturday, by posting them on or around Saturday 22nd November 2025 and adding a link to the list below. And if you would like to plan your Sepia Saturday posts for the remainder of the year, here is a list of our weekly prompt images.
The first generations to have access to photography were very fond of family portraits. Of necessity, these would be staged within formal photographic studios where bulky cameras could be tripodded and supportive props could be at hand (in those days, poses had to be maintained for minutes rather than micro-seconds). It wasn't until the 1920s that we began to see real families in real situations portrayed by amateur photographers with lightweight box cameras. A perfect example of such a "proper family portrait" is our theme image this week - a family in a back garden with a backdrop of drying washing hanging on a line. The studio props are a dustbin and an enamel bowl and the lighting is whatever light could creep through the clouded skies of Bradford in the 1950s. The smiling cherub in the centre of the picture is, of course, your Sepia curator, and 75 years after the picture was taken, he invites you to share your old photographs on or around Saturday 15th November 2025 by leaving a link to them in the list below.
It started as a joke way back in 2009. At times there were hundreds of participants and at other times just a loyal few. Sepia Saturday has continued, through good times and bad, providing a platform for people to share their photographic-based memories. I was looking back through the archives recently and I came across this "Sepia Saturday Manifesto" which I produced fifteen years ago. Reading through it, it still seems relevant today, so it is worth a reprint.
A MANIFESTO FOR SEPIA SATURDAY.
1. We belong to a favoured generation: the first generation of the digital age. Whilst our ancestors have valiantly attempted to preserve their own unique history in scraps of written narrative and faded and creased photographs, we have the unique ability to fix these memories for ever as our legacy to future generations.
2. Scanning, blogging and digital storage provide us with the means of preserving the past, but we also have a duty to preserve the stories and images of those that contributed to our society as we know it. Whilst we can leave to academic historians the task of documenting the lives of the rich and famous, we believe that the most remote second-cousin and the most distant of maiden aunts has made a unique contribution to the lives that we lead. Each one of us has a duty to help preserve the stories of these builders of the modern world.
3. Whilst images alone are fascinating documents, images with words - be they simple half-remembered names and dates or gripping narrative histories - are even better. The synthesis of image and words provides the most effective insight into the past.
4. "Sepia" is an alliterative convenience rather than a descriptive criterion. Let our images be in sepia, in black and white or in full colour : what matters is the message and not the medium.
5. We recognise that we have not only a duty to share our past but also to ensure that it is effectively preserved. Whilst images printed on photographic paper and words written in old notebooks fade with time, they have proved, in most cases, remarkably resilient over time. Perhaps one of the greatest dangers facing the millions of digital images and the endless pages of computerised words we produce today is that they can so easily be lost by the pressing of a wrong button or by the hacking of a troubled soul. We recognise and we accept our responsibility to back-up and securely save.
The two main principles of Sepia Saturday have remained throughout the last 800 weeks - SAVE AND SHARE. We have a duty to save and to share our photographic heritage. Therefore, for the eight hundredth time, I am inviting you to join in with Sepia Saturday by posting a photographic memory and adding a link to the list below on or around Saturday 8th November 2025.
Thanks for supporting Sepia Saturday for the last 16 years ... hopefully we will have a few more years in us yet.
