SEPIA SATURDAY 807 : 3 January 2026

 

Happy New Year to all lovers of old photographs and all friends and followers of Sepia Saturday. Since 2009, Sepia Saturday has been providing a platform for enthusiasts to share their old photographs with others throughout the world by means of our weekly theme-based blog. Although there always tends to be a theme, we have always emphasised that going off-theme was perfectly acceptable - the theme isn't really important - the old photographs are. Sepia Saturday is now in its 807th week and we start 2026 with a theme image that is not only an old photograph - it is a recognised work of art as well: Dorothea Lange's famous 1936 photograph of a Californian agricultural worker.

The photograph comes from the Library of Congress collection of images on the Flickr Commons platform. Flickr Commons has been running a year longer than Sepia Saturday and has managed to bring together over 100 museums and archives from over 25 countries to share their photographic archives on-line. It is a wonderful resource and it has done so much to spread the understanding of the importance of our shared photographic history. The theme images for the next couple of years on Sepia Saturday will be drawn from the various collections available on Flickr Commons, and our first image is therefore from one of the founder institutions - the Library of Congress.

You can add to that joint photographic heritage by sharing an old photograph, whether it is a work of art or not, on Sepia Saturday by adding a link to the list below on or around Saturday 3rd January 2026.

Here are the other January theme images which all come from other Flickr Commons participating institutions.

Sepia Saturday : Christmas and New Year 2025/26

 

It's that time of the year again, the time when Sepia Saturday puts its festive costume on, the time that the themes come drizzled in snowflakes, and the time when I get so busy trying to remember what I am doing I forget to put the future theme calls up! Here, however, is the all important Christmas and New Year call and along with it comes my usual seasonal greetings to all lovers of old photographs and all supporters of Sepia Saturday. You can join in with our festive sepia challenge by posting your favourite old photographs over the Christmas and New Year period and adding a link to the list below. Sepia Saturday will return to our normal weekly call on the 3rd January 2026. My best wishes for a Happy Christmas and peaceful New Year to you all.

Sepia Saturday 805 : Saturday 13th December 2025

 

Music, music, music is my sepia theme this week (you can choose your own theme if you want or follow mine) and to illustrate the theme we have a picture of my Uncle Harry. The picture dates from the 1930s, but I remember him sat at the piano in the 1950s and 1960s entertaining the family. At weekends her would be out performing at one of the many working men's clubs that thrived back in those days in the industrial north of England.  You can join in with Sepia Saturday by simply posting your own old photograph and leaving a link on the list below on or around Saturday 13th December 2025. 

Our final Sepia Saturday of the year is, as usual, for the two weeks over the Christmas and New Year period and playing in the snow sounds like a suitable title (as always, my apologies to those followers in the Southern hemisphere!). Sep[ia Saturday will be back in January 2026 and I will post the January themes within the next few days.

Sepia Saturday 804 : 6th December 2025

 

It's time to get out your needles and thread, start off your knitting, pick up your patchwork, or whatever - or at least it's time to search out your old photographs of all these things. Our theme here on Sepia Saturday this week is Needlework, and, as always, you can embroider that theme however you want to. All you need to do is to knit one and purl one on or around Saturday the 6th December 2025 and add a link to the list below. 

Here is a reminder of what is still to come in 2025:-

Sepia Saturday 803 : Saturday 29th November 2025

 

This week here on Sepia Saturday we are celebrating things that get in the way.  They can, of course, be anything that gets in the way of a good photograph - someone who walks into shot, a passing bus, a stray thumb, or, in the case of our theme image, a bit of rope. And don't worry, if this silly theme is getting in the way of you sharing a fine old photograph, you can always ignore it completely. However you ignore things that get in the way, ignore them on or around Saturday 29th November 2025 and add a link to the list below. And don't let me get in the way of this reminder of what is still to come this year on Sepia Saturday.

Sepia Saturday 802 : 22 November 2025

 

For want of something better, I have given this week's prompt image the title "Bridges To Nowhere". The photograph comes from the extensive collection of my Uncle Frank, and shows a very decorative bridge across a seaside boating lake. As it leads simply from one side of the lake to the other, I suppose you can say that it is a bridge to nowhere, but that is not something that can be said about old photographs in general. Old photographs provide us with a bridge to somewhere, and that somewhere is the past. So, once again, we ask you to share your old photographs here on Sepia Saturday, by posting them on or around Saturday 22nd November 2025 and adding a link to the list below. And if you would like to plan your Sepia Saturday posts for the remainder of the year, here is a list of our weekly prompt images.

Sepia Saturday 801 : Saturday 15th November 2025

 

The first generations to have access to photography were very fond of family portraits. Of necessity, these would be staged within formal photographic studios where bulky cameras could be tripodded and supportive props could be at hand (in those days, poses had to be maintained for minutes rather than micro-seconds). It wasn't until the 1920s that we began to see real families in real situations portrayed by amateur photographers with lightweight box cameras. A perfect example of such a "proper family portrait" is our theme image this week - a family in a back garden with a backdrop of drying washing hanging on a line. The studio props are a dustbin and an enamel bowl and the lighting is whatever light could creep through the clouded skies of Bradford in the 1950s. The smiling cherub in the centre of the picture is, of course, your Sepia curator, and 75 years after the picture was taken, he invites you to share your old photographs on or around Saturday 15th November 2025 by leaving a link to them in the list below.