Sepia Saturday Week 25

IT is often said that old photographs are a window to the past. This is of course true, they help us to get a feel of past times like no other medium. But just as you can sit and gaze through a window and see more and more the longer you look, these old photographs can provide layer after layer of hidden information. And it often is the process of scanning, enlarging and preparing for publication that pulls the shades aside and allows you to see so much more. Sepia Saturday blogger Nancy (My Ancestors And Me) alluded to this process in her excellent post last week ("Two Bits"). She spoke of how she eventually was able to date the photograph of her barber grandfather by the date showing in the calendar in the background (if you haven't read Nancy's post, read it for the superb quality of the writing just as much as for the photographic investigation).  

Information in the foreground, information in the background - whatever the old photograph, it is welcome on the Sepia Saturday Blog. Sepia Saturday 25 will be on Saturday 29th May  2010. Post your post and sign up on the Linky List below.

Sepia Saturday Week 24

In his excellent Sepia Saturday post last week, CrazyasaCoolfox spoke of tangible history. He was referring to a small corner chair which featured in a couple of old family pictures and which still exists within the family. Such objects that are handed down are tangible history : physical things that provide a direct link to the past. The pictures we feature in our Sepia Saturday posts are also examples of tangible history : objects that were once lovingly handled by distant generations and carefully saved and passed down from one generation to the next. They were saved and shared because it was felt that they said something important. They recorded times of joy or triumph and occasionally times of sadness and loss. The fact that we can still share these emotions today is witness to the tangible nature of photographs as historical conduits. To see what tangible history will be shared this week take a look at the people who are participating in Sepia Saturday Week 24 (Saturday 22 May 2010). To join in the fun simple put a post together based on an old photograph and sign up to the Link List below.

Sepia Saturday Week 23

The "sepia" in Sepia Saturday is a general evocation rather than a defining classification. When Kat and I had the idea for Sepia Saturday we wanted a site where old photographs of whatever vintage provided the prompt for memories and musings. The word "sepia" was redolent of the photographic past in the same way that we hoped the photographs featured by all the many contributors would be redolent of a spread of decades and a spread of cultures. I always find that some images can proclaim a particular time in the same way that popular music can. As I look at the magnificent mix of images featured by all the Sepia Saturday contributors, I sometimes have an  imagined soundtrack playing along. With some pictures you would have the plucking of a pioneer banjo, with others the excitement of an early jazz band.  But with the wonderful pictures featured by Anita of the negativespace blog over the last couple of weeks it is the sound of Sinatra and the Billy May Orchestra. The photographs have the 1950s running through them : the sophistication, the modernism, the hope and the sheer love of post-war life.

You can keep my imaginary soundtrack playing for another week by signing up for Sepia Saturday 23 which will take place on Saturday 15th May 2010. All you have to do is to put up your post and then link by using the following Linky List.

Sepia Saturday Week 22

We are up to Week 22 of Sepia Saturday and, although by now a number of patterns have emerged, the delight of S-S remains the diversity of approach. Some people post long carefully researched pieces, others short, snappy insights. Some tell of people, others tell of houses or even bridges. Some limit themselves to just one photograph, some use a whole series of photographs to tell a story. A fine example of using a series of photographs to tell the story of a person was the post last week by Sean Bentley in his Eff-Stop Local Blog. Posts of this kind are a delight, it is like paging through an old family album.

Whether you tell it long or short, fat or thin, up or down, tell it on Week 22 of Sepia Saturday which will be on Saturday 8th May 2010. All you have to do is to link your post via the Linky List below (either before or after the event) and the rest - as they say - is history.

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.