Sepia Saturday 154 : 1 December 2012

Bridges have always had symbolic meaning. When discussions were taking place on the design of the first Euro notes, it was decided that the common illustration on all denominations should be a bridge - to symbolise the joining together of people, communities, and nations. Our Sepia Saturday theme image this week is entitled "Rough Wooden Bridge Over River, Group With Dog on the Shore". It comes, via Flickr Commons, from the Phillips Glass Plate Negative Collection, at the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, Australia. The Museum provides no further information about where the bridge is, but the brilliance of on-line communities such as Flickr Commons (or, indeed, Sepia Saturday) is that such information is soon forthcoming : the footbridge was in Mosman Bay on the north shore of Sydney Harbour. The location of the photograph is not the only question posed by the title - it takes a sharp eye to spot the reported dog. 

You Sepia Saturday theme for this week could therefore be bridges, lakes, rowing boats, dogs (present or absent), or whatever you care to make it. Just post your post on or around Saturday 1st December 2012 and add a link to the list below. 

As usual, here is a sneak preview of the next two Sepia Saturday images :

Overalls and kisses are for the future, however. For the moment, step onto the bridge to the past that is Sepia Saturday and post your images for Sepia Saturday 154.

Sepia Saturday 153 : 24 November 2012

Old photographs are wonderful aren't they? I know I am preaching to the converted, but isn't it wonderful how an old photograph can send you on a journey : a fascinating journey of discovery. Take our archive image this week which comes from the Samuel Bell Maxey Collection at the Texas State Archives and is available via the wonderful Flickr Commons service. The only information provided is that it is a photograph of  Lala Williams and Elgie Crook, but with just a few Google clicks you can discover that ...... Well, I don't want to spoil the journey for you, so go and click your own Google and take your own journey of discovery.

And so this is our theme image this week - post your posts on or around Saturday 24 November and link them to the list blow - and there are one hundred and one theme strands you may care to follow. All you need to do is to look into those two faces and let your imagination run free.

So that your imagination can shop early for Christmas, here are the next two Sepia Saturday archive image prompts.

But for the moment look again at the photograph of Lala and Elgie and let it work its sepia magic.

Sepia Saturday 152 : 17 November 2012

Our Sepia Saturday Archive Picture Prompt this week comes from the collection of the New York Public Library and features a group of children avidly reading their books following a talk about books by the staff of the Library. The picture dates back to the 1920s (note : there is not a Kindle in sight) and offers a variety of potential directions for Sepia Posters to take (books, reading, kids, libraries, ridiculous check jackets ... or whatever). The only instruction, as usual, is to post your post on or around Saturday 17th November 2012 and include a link on the list below.

Now I know we had a reading prompt fairy recently and you may think that the Sepia Saturday archivist has once again lost the plot (especially as there was a strikingly similar image previewed for SS153). And you would be right. However, I have swallowed a couple of those little yellow pills and things seem much clearer now. Therefore I have decided to withdraw the prompt image for SS153, replace it with a new one, and forget the whole episode ever happened (I suspect I need a holiday). So here is a preview of the next two Sepia Saturday prompts for those who like some advanced notice of the confusion to come.

You can, as usual, read into those two images exactly what you want to, but don't start reading until you have completed your submission to Sepia Saturday 152. Now, are you sitting comfortably?

Sepia Saturday 151 : 10 November 2012

So here I am, back home again, safe and sound on dry land. Let me first of all thank my good friend Kat Mortensen for looking after Sepia Saturday in my absence. From the look of things, Sepia Saturday has been in very good hands indeed. I still haven't unpacked the cases yet, so I will get straight on with this weeks' call, and for Sepia Saturday 151 the subject of our call is .... calls. Or telephone calls, or exchanges or whatever you would like to interpret the above photograph from the US National Archives which is entitled "Photograph of Women Working at a Bell System Telephone Switchboard". As usual, all you have to do is to post your own old image and add a few new reflections on or around Saturday the 10th November 2012. Once you have posted, add a link to the list below and then try and drop in on as many other Sepia Saturday callers as you can.

For those who like to think about future calls in advance, here is a quick preview of the next two Sepia Saturday archive photographs.

But this week it is the telephone exchange. I suppose, when you think about it, Sepia Saturday is a kind of graphical telephone exchange. So dial up, plug in and give us a call.

Sepia Saturday 150: 3 November 2012

Anyone up for a little deciphering?  Can you make out what the (albeit reversed) hand-writing says on the right-hand side of this image? Here's a snip, rotated, enlarged and cross-processed. Any luck now?

Click to enlarge

Once again, I'm afraid we've got MEN, or at least men and youths.  Now, I've not seen it before, but I know in Ireland they have an odd sport called, "hurling".  I'm pretty sure that that's what's been going on here.

I would love to know what those buildings are in the distance.

Lots of hats - men's hats this time, and as someone mentioned (might have been Marilyn, I can't recall) that one fella looks like he's on a cell phone, but since this image is from  the 1920s, that's quite an anachronism!


This is actually Irish Revolutionary Leader, Michael Collins, at the Senior Hurling Championship match against Dublin on September 12, 1921. He's talking to the Kilkenny hurlers at Croke Park in Dublin.

(Dublin won the match 4-4 to 1-5 to a crowd of 17,000)

(Collins would be assassinated only a year later, at the age of 32, on August 22, 1922) Now I'm wondering what that other fellow might be reaching for in his vest pocket?

Go political, go sporty, go fashionable, go inventive ... just GO!

Kat



Here's a sneak peak at the next two weeks! (Alan's choices.)

By the way, don't forget to sign up to "follow" me and other SS participants, and I'm sure they will do the very same, as will I.

Please post your links below, and visit all our fellow Sepia Saturday members to read what they have come up with as the result of pondering this image:

No S.O.S. required!

NOT Alan and Isobel!
(original image borrowed from Flickr)

Dear Members: Yesterday, I took it upon myself to contact the "S.S. Azura" via e-mail, to ensure that our beloved host, Alan and his GLW are indeed ship-shape, and have not been adversely affected by hurricane, "Sandy". I expressed our concern as a group, for their welfare and I am delighted to report that I have had a response this morning. To wit:

Hi Kat,
Your kind message has just been passed onto me by the ship's reception. We are all fine and by now we are on our way back across the Atlantic and well out of harms way. We were really touched by your message; it once again illustrates what a real community Sepia Saturday is. Internet connection is dreadfully slow and intermittent and frighteningly expensive so could I possibly ask whether you could put a message on the SS Blog and Facebook Page assuring all that we are safe and well and extending all of our good wishes to all those who are facing the perils of the weather at the moment.

Alan and Isobel

THE S.S. AZURA, LEAVING SOUTHAMPTON WITH ALAN AND ISOBEL ON IT!

Sepia Saturday 149: 27 October 2012

Men, Men, Men, Men, Men-dee-Men-Men!

So, you're tired of men, are you? Well feast your eyes on THIS beauty!  ( I jest, so I do.)

Here's another Flickr Commons photo from the National Library of Ireland, and what have we here?  Not one, but TWO women! Hurrah!  (I was greatly relieved to find the second lady in the background with the lovely hat, but I'll be honest, even I am going to struggle to come up with a photo that follows this theme!)

This picture is of "Twin Wells" on the banks of the River Aille at Lisdoonvarna in County Clare, taken around the turn of the century (1900).

Apparently the waters were acclaimed as restorative and this place was designated a spa.  By the looks of things, the old lady in the photo has not benefited, or isn't drinking them. Ha!

Go on my dears, and make what you can of this, be it spas, water, old ladies, young ladies, tourists, umbrellas, homeless people.  Go on!

I cannot possibly think of this spot in the south of Ireland without  giving you a little related treat. Here's a YouTube clip of a somewhat famous tune entitled, "Lisdoonvarna" by the equally famous, Christy Moore. Bear with the brief advertisement at the beginning.

Here we go!  Another couple of teasers for you - and look, in two weeks, not a man in sight!!!

I have made an effort to visit everyone who posted last week, and if you had a method whereby I could follow your blog, I have done so.  I would be most grateful if you would reciprocate.  A hearty thanks to all who have done so, so far.

Don't forget to visit all the undoubtedly stellar interpretations of the photo below, by visiting the Sepia Saturday blog (beginning on Friday) and clicking on the links.   Thank you!