Sepia Saturday Week 21

I remember, years ago, coming across a school history textbook which, whilst covering all the usual bases in terms of nineteenth and twentieth century political and social history, illustrated the names, places and events with reproductions of postage stamps. I thought it a wonderful approach because it reminded readers that these great events did not take place in isolation, but were fused into the lives of ordinary people. I like to think that our Sepia Saturday efforts are a bit like this. You can look at these slightly faded photographs of ours and see faces from the past : but look again and you see those faces within the context of great economic, social and political movements. Those movements shaped their lives and, inevitably, they have shaped our lives too. That multi-talented blogger John Hayes of Robert Frost's Banjo has recently been featuring a series of Sepia Saturday photographs of his father during his time in the American Civilian Construction Corps in the 1930s. These posts and these photographs are a perfect example of what I mean. Pictures of faces which have not only been touched by their own unique personal history, but also the history of their times. 

Week 21 of our Sepia Saturday adventure will take place on Saturday 1st May 2010. What historical events will be reflected in the faces of the photographs featured by our Sepia Saturday posters? Call back on Saturday to find links to all the posts. Better still, join in the Sepia Saturday project and add your own link to the list below.

Sepia Saturday Week 20

It has been one of those weeks and all my blogging efforts seem to be running late. But here, at last, is the call for Week 20 of Sepia Saturday which will take place on Saturday 24th April 2010.  My picture this week is taken from the wonderful post in the Roots of Home blog last week. We are used to Sepia Saturday being used as a vehicle to trace the history of people : great aunts, favourite uncles and far distant grandparents. But writer and photographer "Sun Dance Hill" turned the Sepia Saturday spotlight on a building : the wonderful house in Southfield, Massachusetts which used to be her family home. The post proves that timber, bricks and mortar can encompass life just as successfully as skin and bone. To participate in Sepia Saturday 20 you can write about people or buildings, places or memories : just sign up and start remembering.

Sepia Saturday Week 19

All on board for another jolly Sepia Saturday ride. Sepia Saturday 19 will take place on Saturday 17th April 2010. If you are new to this malarkey all you need to do is to post an old photograph and say something about it. The photograph can be one week old or 150 years old. It can be of your Aunt Nellie or Queen Victoria. It can be in luscious sepia or vibrant colour. What you say can be in prose or verse, English or Chinese or Lithuanian. You get the idea - our posts reach back to the past, they connect to times gone by. I am not saying this very well, so let me quote from one of the entries from Sepia Saturday 18. The lyrical Nana Jo (A Nana's Journey) was writing about her collection of photos and objects that belonged to her mother-in-law, Oma. I am sure many of you read her piece and the final paragraph which said :

"Now, today, handling her things, they feel like small indrawn breaths waiting to gently exhale. There is the hush of life in them. They proclaim a comforting stillness, utterly old and forever new. They are both silent and eloquent; mute and yet they speak. They beat with the pulse of Oma’s story".

To me, those words just seemed to express what Sepia Saturday is all about. So, sign up to the list now or wait until your post is up and then add the link then. Let your posts beat with the pulse of someone's story.

Sepia Saturday Week 18

Sepia Saturday is back after its Easter break : Week 18 of our backwards looking photographic blog will take place on Saturday the 10th April. It seems that some people posted a Sepia Saturday entry last Saturday and then worried that they might have "broken the rules". Again I should point out that the only rule for Sepia Saturday is that there are no rules. Our photograph to accompany this call for posts comes from the last Sepia Saturday entry of the truly magnificent Willow. Willow has been supporting the Sepia Saturday project since it was first started and therefore deserves a big vote of thanks. But I am including this image because it reminds us all that without the photographers; without that legion of enthusiasts with their Box Brownies and their Folding Agfas, there would be no Sepia Saturdays and far fewer memories for us to share. 

Use the following form to sign up before you post or sign up after you post, or write your shopping list on. 

Sepia Saturday Week 17

Roll up, roll up for Week 17 of Sepia Saturday. Based on the widespread, major, sophisticated consultation procedure that we carried out last week it would seem that most people prefer to enter their link after they have posted and thereby enter a specific link to the Sepia Saturday post rather than the general blog.  Some people however still want to provide an indication that they intent to post, in which case they might like to leave a comment announcing their intention to post and then a link to the specific post. Alternatively they can add a link to their blog whenever they want or alternatively ...  they can do whatever they like. Sepia Saturday is that kind of anarchic thing.

My clip from last week's postings had to be this picture from Leah's wonderful post "Leather-Booted Great-Grandpa" which you can find - if you've not already seen it - on her equally wonderful blog "The Weather In The Streets".  Week 17 of Sepia Saturday will be on Saturday 27th March 2010 so sign up / comment / do nothing now if you intent to participate. And a word of advanced warning - following an equally thorough consultation process, I have decided to skip a Sepia Saturday over Easter and therefore Sepia Saturday 18 will be on Saturday 10th April.

Sepia Saturday Week 16

It is a bit like when you first get married - multiplied by a factor of thirty-odd! I well remember the mixture of joy and slight bewilderment as I was suddenly faced with a whole new family tree with its complex stories and strange inter-relationships. It takes time before you realise that Auntie R was the sister of Auntie M whose daughter used to be married to David B and not David J who is from a different part of the family altogether. Well, with Sepia Saturday you have a whole forest of family trees to delight in and I, for one, am loving the process of discovering each and every branch. Take Barry, for example, who is introducing us to his family via a splendid sepia family portrait taken in 1890. Each week he takes one of the members of this family group and tells their story - and what wonderful stories they are. Other people have a more haphazard approach to Sepia Saturday, jumping from branch to branch and tree to tree like a genealogical spider monkey. The beauty of Sepia Saturday is that whatever approach you take is fine : the enjoyment is just as much in the variety of approaches as in the subject matter itself.

Sepia Saturday 16 will be on Saturday 20th March 2010. Over the last few weeks it has become apparent that many participants are signing up to the list after they have posted and this enables them to include a link direct to the post rather than the the generic blog. I must confess - as a leisured reader of Sepia Saturday posts over a number of days - I find this approach very useful. Perhaps people can leave comments as to which they prefer before we issue guidance. But even if we issue guidance, that's all it will be : there are enough rules in life without Sepia Saturday adding to the stock.

Sepia Saturday Week 15

One of the things I like most of all about our joint Sepia Saturday enterprise is the way in which a common starting point - an old photograph - can lead to so many directions of travel. For some it is the story behind the photograph, for others it is a tone-poem of memories. And for others it is a magnificent ride through great chunks of family, economic and social history - like a blog-post equivalent of "How The West Was Won". My chosen photograph this week comes from last weeks' Sepia Saturday contribution by that  ever-resourceful and always entertaining blogger, David M Lynch (The Silver Fox). In "Sepia Saturday - Heroes and Villains", I loved the description of the way Joe Korsak Sr married not just Aunt Josie, but the entire family. In a way that is what we do with our Sepia Saturday posts, we share our families and their rich and varied stories. Week 15 of Sepia Saturday will be Saturday 13th March, so feel free to sign up and share your family - share your history.