Sepia Saturday 38

What is it about old photographs we love so much? It is their ability to transport us back through time. It is the way they offer us an insight into people and places. It is the way we can analyse them, divide them up into invisible squares and ring every last drop of detail out of them. Leslie Ann (Ancestors Live Here) gave us a great example of this latter attribute in her post last week. Her photograph was taken in the house of her grandparents and Leslie Ann took us on a tour of the room and its contents. It was almost like one of those early computerised books where you could click on an object and it would tell you more about it.

Sepia Saturday Week 38 (around and about Saturday 28th August 2010) gives you an opportunity to travel through time, get insights into people and places and analyse to your hearts' content. All you need to do us to put together a post based around an old photograph (it doesn't have to be sepia) and add a link to the list below. Everyone is invited along.

Sepia Saturday 37

Last week, the delightful Marilyn from New Zealand (My Magpie Collection) gave us a Sepia Saturday post which featured her grandfather (George Richard Parsons).  There was a wonderful sepia photograph, a full and fascinating account of his life, and as an additional bonus, even his pastry recipe. It was a classic Sepia Saturday post and one which I very much enjoyed reading. But I don't think I have come across one I haven't enjoyed in all the weeks I have been hosting Sepia Saturday. And remember, the photographs don't have to be sepia : as I said to someone last week, sepia is a state of mind and not just a colour.

The recipe for our continued pleasure is an easy one. Just post an old photograph, tell us about it and add a link to the post on the list below. Sepia Saturday 37 will take place on or around Saturday 21st August. Everyone is invited.

Sepia Saturday 36

The twin worlds of Sepia Saturday and vintage postcard collecting frequently overlap. Many of the old family photographs we feature in our Sepia Saturday posts are in the form of postcards. This reflects the service that was provided by most photographic studios in the early twentieth century - the provision of prints with postcard backs. When this service went into decline - brought about by the abatement of the postcard collecting hobby, the increase in postage rates, and the growing popularity of home photography - it would be almost a hundred years before things like Facebook arrived and personal photographs would, once again, be shared to such an extent. 

But mass-produced vintage postcards also provide us with plenty of images to set our Sepia Saturday compositions in motion. Old postcards tick all of the Sepia Saturday boxes : they are old and they provide a pictorial rail from which we can hang so many stories. The place, the time, the message, the recipient - all provide fare for Sepia Saturday speculations. Sepia Saturday participant dakotaboo provides an excellent example of how the two worlds overlap in his Vintage Postcard blog. My illustration this week is taken from last week's post and shows a Judge postcard of Hastings.

Whether it is a postcard or a carte de visite, a cabinet card or a dog-eared snap, it is always welcome at Sepia Saturday. SS 36 will take place on Saturday 14th August. Just post an image-inspired post around that time and link to it in the Linky thing below.

Sepia Saturday Week 35

My apologies with getting behind with everything of late. I resolve to be a better person from now on. To start the process, let me put this call post up early for a change.

A new name appeared on our list of contributors last week - daylily - but it was a post from a Sepia Saturday friend, Queenmothermamaw. Qm3 has launched a new blog and taken on a new persona, but the posts are just as fascinating as always. The picture featured was a perfect sepia shot of a stream which could have been taken 70 years ago. In fact it was taken last week and digitally converted into sepia. Let nobody think that this is cheating : most sepia photographs were chemically converted into sepia in order to give them that aged look of respectability. Digital conversion is merely a new take on the old process of chemical conversion, and as someone who has done my share of the latter in my time I can tell you it is a lot quicker and a lot less toxic (I can still remember buying my first bottle of sepia toner some forty years ago and being made to sign the Poisons Book by the chemist concerned!).

So in asking you to join in with Sepia Saturday 35 (Saturday 7th August 2010) let me merely remind you that your images don't have to go up on Saturday (although if the post is earlier than Saturday try to make sure it is a link to the post and not to the blog) nor do they have to be in sepia (just an image with some history and some words with an explanation). All you have to do is to add your name and a link to the Linky List below. And enjoy.

Sepia Saturday Week 34

In her Sepia Saturday contribution last week, Cheri Daniels (Journeys Past) wrote about how pleased she was that the "less than perfect" compilation of shots of her father as a young baby was not thrown away. The resulting picture let us see " the developing and fading of tears, and the work it took just to get this busy little guy to sit still!" I so agree with Cheri. We get used to seeing perfectly posed and perfectly focused vintage photographs : the ones that were saved and framed and treasured. But so often it is the technically less than perfect shots that capture reality - show life as it really was.

Sepia Saturday will be open again this week - Sepia Saturday 34 July 31st 2010 - and everyone is invited to participate. Just post an old photograph and tell us what it means. Add a link to your post on the list below and include a link back to the Sepia Saturday blog. Good shots, bad shots, sharp shots, soft shots - show them to the world with Sepia Saturday.

Sepia Saturday : Week 33

Last week we gained a new member to our little circle - gibknitty who runs the delightful Urban Muser Blog. The link went up fairly late so those who didn't see the post - which included a photograph of her mother and her aunt - will have missed the interesting comment she makes about the importance of listening to the stories the older generations of our families can tell about the "old days". "And although sometimes our own busy lives get in the way", she writes, "I vow to keep making time not just for new memories, but to revisit the old ones before they disappear". There is a lot of truth in that short sentence and I for one look forward to reading about some of those old memories in her contributions to Sepia Saturday in weeks to come.

Sepia Saturday 33 is almost upon us. Simply incorporate an old photograph into your post and link it via the Linky List below. Don't forget to mention the Sepia Saturday blog and visit as many of the other participants as you can. Make time for some of those old memories on Sepia Saturday.

Sepia Saturday : Week 32

Whilst we still have many new participants taking part in Sepia Saturday, the number of people taking part each week seems to have peaked, which - in many ways - is a welcome thing. It means that the project remains manageable : when you come to visit other participants you are not faced with an impossibly long list. You can take your time, read the posts at your leisure, and make comments that are meaningful rather than superficial. Feedback on comments often opens up discussion which adds a new dimension to creative blogging.

I got into one such discussion last week with Tattered and Lost whose blogs feature - amongst other things - ephemera and vernacular photography. We talked about how you embark on an adventure when you begin to bring one of these old photographs to life, and how a good writer - like T&L and, indeed, all of you - can incorporate the reader in the process of discovery.

The intimacy of small numbers is nice, but we could always do with just one or two more. So why not join in with our Sepia Saturday adventure this week and open up a new discussion. Sign up to the Linky List with a link to your post.