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.
