Sepia Saturday 319 : 27 February 2016

As I have spent the last four weeks drowning in a continual cycle of domestic drudgery - endless mopping, washing and the occasional ironing - following our bizarre decision to acquire a puppy when we were both in our nineties (that may be a slight exaggeration, but believe me that is how old I feel at the moment), it is eminently suitable that our Sepia Saturday theme image this week celebrates  those domestic skills that made our forebears such fine upstanding figures. Come to think of it, given the amount of starch that was used in domestic laundry, no wonder they all exhibited a stiff upper lip.

The photograph - which is suitably given the crisp, clean, no-nonsense title of "Ironing, 1951" - comes from the photographic archives of the Mennonite Church USA which are available via the Flickr Commons initiative. All you need to do is to identify one of your own images that may or may not have some kind of well-ironed link to the theme image and say a few words about it. Post your posts on or around Saturday 27th February 2016 and then add a link to the list below.

Whilst you are waiting for your inspirational iron to get hot, you might want to take a look at what is in the sepia laundry basket awaiting your attention in the next couple of weeks. And if that is not enough for you, all the theme images up to the end of June 2016 are now available in the post which is featured in the sidebar.

But now it is time to strike whilst the iron is hot. It is time to join in with Sepia Saturday 319.

Sepia Saturday Image Prompts : March - June 2016

Sepia Saturday 318 : 20 February 2016

Our Sepia Saturday theme image for this week (Sepia Saturday 318 - post your posts on or around Saturday 20th February 2016) dates back seventy years to June 1949 and comes from the pages of Downbeat Magazine. It features that wonderful jazz and blues singer, Billie Holiday along with by far the most faithful companion she ever managed to befriend during her all too brief life - her dog. Besides Holidays, mirrors, lights and dogs, the photograph - which is part of the Library of Congress collection on Flickr Commons - contains a host of other potential visual prompts. You, as always, are free to follow whichever you want to - or none at all if you so choose. Just give us some old photo and some new words and add a link to the list below.

You will find details of the next two image prompts below and a link to the prompts up to the end of March in the sidebar. And if I can manage to get my act together, you will find a link to all the image prompts from April until June before the sun as set too many times.

In order to get you in a suitable mood, let me leave you with a little bit of Billie, right back at the start of her career.

x

Sepia Saturday 317 : 13 February 2016

Ah, Saint Valentine's Day - a time of togetherness, love and romance. Just the kind of day to go off for a nice game of golf. Our theme image for Sepia Saturday this week comes from the Flickr Commons Collection of the State Library of Queensland and is simply entitled "Golfing Foursome". You might want to go with the game of golf, or with foursomes, or - considering the fact that they seem to be loving their game - you might want to go with love. Whatever you go with, simply post your post on or around Saturday 13th of February and add a link to the list below.

Before you tee off you might want to see what awaits you at the end of the sepia fairway. Here are our next two theme images.

But right now you need to concentrate on your put. Choose your old image, say a few words about it, and put it up on your blog!

Sepia Saturday 316 : 6 February 2016

I sometimes think that image lovers fall into two camps - the lovers of still images and the lovers of moving images, and seldom do the two overlap. This week on Sepia Saturday we celebrate the moving image, but don't imagine that means that you have to hunt out old bits of cine film and convert them to YouTube clips. As always, Sepians can interpret the theme image (a 1951 photograph taken on Bondi Beach which comes to us courtesy of the Australian National Maritime Museum) in whichever way they want to. As always, simply post your posts on or around Saturday 6th February 2016 and add a link to the list below.

Before you snap the clapperboard, you might want to see what awaits you in the next scene or two of the Sepia Saturday production.

Such things are for the future, but now the focus is on Sepia Saturday 316. Get ready ..... lights, camera, action ..... go.

Sepia Saturday 315 : 30 January 2016

My apologies if this call for submissions for Sepia Saturday 315 (post your posts on or around Saturday 30 January 2016 and then link them to the list below). The reason is the same one as why my Sepia Saturday contribution never materialised last week and all I can say that it is bound to get better in a month or two (or maybe a year or two). I would sustain my poor old body with a cake or two (all you need is some flour, eggs, butter and a nice big oven) but I am on my post-Christmas diet. So no cakes for me - but at least I can look - and where better to look than at this 1940s image from the National Library of Ireland.I really don't need to say any more - the theme image contains all the ingredients you will need to make a tasty Sepia Saturday cake all of your own.

And whilst you are waiting for the cakes to bake you might want to see what is next in the sepia recipe book.

 

So get your contributions prepared for the Great Sepia Bake Off. Good luck.

Sepia Saturday 314 : 23 January 2016

Our Sepia Saturday theme image this week, like the vast majority of our theme images, comes from the wonderful Flickr Commons initiative. Not only does Flickr Commons provide a platform for museums and archives to make their collections available to the general public, but it also provides a forum for the collaborative exploration of those images. This photograph - which has been contributed by the National Library of Ireland - provides an excellent illustration of this. The original catalogue details are as follows:

The Fannings
This family is almost certainly from Newtown in Waterford city, and Mr Fanning may have had something to do with a Butter Store. I'd say from the clothes, etc. that this is quite early for a Poole photo? (1884 is our earliest Poole glass plate.)

It's a great shot of parents, children, and puppy all en famille, and their freckliness (officially recognised medical term) is fascinating...

Date: 1880s??

Whilst that is interesting in its own right, the discussion which follows adds extra layers of fascination - in exactly the way we Sepias are very familiar with. As far as our Sepia Saturday 314 efforts are concerned (post your post on or around Saturday 23 January 2016 and add a link to the list below) there are a host of potential themes to go with - I know which one I will be following and the reason why (but you will have to wait to discover what that is). Here is our normal look ahead at what is waiting for us around the sepia corner.

I will leave you with the Fannings and their collection of toy boats. Talking of boats, I am off for a few days to the coast for reasons that are beyond me. I will be back for the weekend but then I have to go back to the coast on Sunday for reasons that are anything but beyond me. Time will tell.