Friday, March 15, 2013

Sepia Saturday 168 : Love And Hate At Locarno


I have a confession to make. I HATE SEPIA SATURDAY!  Yes, you heard me right, and if you insist I will say it again. I HATE SEPIA SATURDAY! It is no good trying to hide it any more, trying to pretend, trying to deny the truth in the hope that it will evaporate like a pint of Carnation Milk. I HATE SEPIA SATURDAY! And what has driven me to this confession? The answer can be found in two international conferences: the July 1945 Potsdam Conference and the October 1925 Locarno Conference.

It all started with this weeks' theme image for Sepia Saturday, which was a photograph taken at the Potsdam Conference. Now a theme of international conferences may stump some participants, but not this one. Normally I choose the theme images and therefore feel a bit embarrassed if I happen to have a perfect match, but this time someone else chose the theme and there was nothing to stop me playing my ace, my vintage postcard of the 1925 Locarno Conference. All I had to do was to find the postcard, scan it, display it, and bask in the heat of the reflective glory (It's the only way you get to bask in the heat in Yorkshire in March).  And there would be no difficulty in finding it, would there? After all, I am still buzzing after finding the photograph of Sunnyvale Lake I posted yesterday.

You can guess the rest of the story. Could I find the card? Could I heck. I searched through shoe boxes and plastic boxes, hanging files and plastic wallets, but the wretched thing was nowhere to be found. Sepia Saturday is always doing this to me - reminding me of an old image that would be perfect for a theme and then driving me mad when I discover that my actual filing system is nowhere as efficient as my imaginary filing cabinet. Which is why, as I have already said but I will repeat it again just in case you didn't hear me, I HATE SEPIA SATURDAY!

So, you may logically ask, how come I have a scan of the image at the head of this post? I did a Google image search for the Locarno Conference and eventually found what appeared to be a similar image listed on a service called Visualize.Us, the only problem being that it had a copyright notice on it. I was on the verge of sending off a note to the person who, it was said, I had to approach in order to get permission to reproduce the image when I noticed, to my considerable surprise, that it was me! I eventually tracked it back to a post on News From Nowhere from December 2008 which, I must confess I had completely forgotten about. 

This means that, for the second day running, I can get away with recycling an old post. You know something? I LOVE SEPIA SATURDAY!

If you want to know about the Locarno Conference you can read my original 2008 News From Nowhere post. If you want to see how others get along with this week's theme image you can follow the links on the Sepia Saturday Blog.

27 comments:

  1. Baaaahaaaaaaaaaahaaaaaaaaaa! So glad you weren't easily stymied by that cranky original poster.

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  2. Phew! It can be the most frustrating and time-consuming (see Peter Miebe's post) part of our week, but we've come to look forward to it, enjoy the challenges and frustrations and sharing with our fellow contributors. Therefore we are all, I'm sure, relieved at your change of heart. As for searching for that elusive picture for a theme prompt, I refer you to my e-mail, sent a day ago. All I can suggest is that we update a post when we finally stumble upon the elusive image, usually when we are not looking for it! Nice pic of the Locarno conference by the way, and congratulations on the detective work.

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  3. Good one Alan .. I know just that feeling, searching for photographs and eventually finding them on one's own blog. Or alternatively, starting to research and write about a photo in my collection, and then discovering that I wrote about that exact image a couple of years ago.

    The Locarno conference postcard does look almost genuine, doesn't it?

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  4. It's always interesting to see the amount of effort you go to to research a topic. Interesting story.

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  5. Hahahaha. That is really funny.

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  6. Learn from the stoics. Don't get so worked up. Read some Epictetus.

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  7. "What do we want? A better memory! When do we want it? Want what????

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  8. This is priceless and wonderful.

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  9. Phew! I knew you love us really.

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  10. Ah, yes, the eternal battle of love and hate. Only you would dare to deal with such an epic subject. And it's good that you recycle, too.

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  11. Odi er Amo. Catullus would love this, and hate it.

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  12. Dang autocorrect doesn't know Latin. Odi et Amo.

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  13. I loved your post and its surprise ending!

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  14. It's a sad state of affairs when this happens to us!!

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  15. ...and my dear friend Alan, we are so lucky that you do love Sepia Saturday, as do we! Cheers!

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  16. And the more you cannot find something, the more desperately you feel you must unearth it. I am sure we have all been there and turned the house upside down in the process. What a successful hunt in the end, though - Thank goodness!

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  17. I think, Alan, that your photo may be the weekly Sepia Saturday Thematic Photograph Select Committee, hard at work on negotiating the intricate international rules and regulations for creating a new world order for shoe box snapshots and postcards. They all look like they deserve a pint or two.

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  18. One day everything I possess will be scanned or photographed and I can get rid of the lot !

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  19. Amusing post. With you on things getting lost and wanting so much to find them but can not. Murphy's Law?

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  20. Good post. I recognize the feeling even though I've not been taking part in Sepia Saturday that long. In my inherited family albums most photos sit in no particular order though and it's hard sometimes to remember and find where it was I saw this or that...

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  21. International Conferences Are Supposed To Resolve Conflicting Emotions.And,Alan,In Your Case Today they have! Peace In Our Time !:)

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  22. So funny, glad your digital doppelgänger gave permission to use it:-) A wonderful piece of history.

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  23. I've been through these emotions before. So familiar. Maybe we should do a post on organization. Everyone can give their tips on filing systems (if anyone has any!). Or are we all in the same boat?
    Anyway, I enjoyed this post immensely. So funny.
    Nancy

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  24. You found your own photo!! It is impossible to find everything all the time:)

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  25. A repost due to [sort of]amnesia is better than hating your own creation,
    I daresay.
    Congrats on the opening of this post:
    You got my FULL attention!!!
    :D~
    HUGZ

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