Friday 16 August 2013

Sepia Saturday - A Family of Picnics

Sunday School picnic at Terang c1910,
my Uncle Bill (8-year-old)  is just right of centre with a handful of cherries
on his way to his mother, my great grandmother

I have so many photos to go with this prompt I hardly knew where to start. 

We are a family of picnickers over many generations. Australia certainly has the weather for picnics, and the space.

I guess many families have picnics but ours not only photographed themselves on picnics, leaving the evidence many times over, but they also kept the photos for generations and generations.

This week’s photo prompt, as usual was accompanied by some ‘word’ prompts:
- picnics (check),
- kettle (does a billy count?),
- primus stoves (does a campfire count?),
- teapots (again the billy, but I think I have a silver teapot),
- chickens (well they always ran around in our backyard / farm – just too fast for the photos, but I'm sure we ate chicken),
- gardens (Australia’s big backyard was our garden, but there is one of my Nanna in her garden),
- straw hats (and white hats and bowler hats and more at the Terang Sunday School picnic),
- blankets (also plentiful),
- shy girl (that’d be my mum),

So here's way less than half the picnic shots I have: 

Pretty ladies in white with flowers in their hair in the garden
at Watch Hill (my Nanna is centre)
No blanket here - tough country people.  My mum (right) hiding behind her mug
Waiting while the billy boiled - Nanna, her daughters and their cousins.
Mum hiding (again) behind her mum.
Mum not hiding this time, but a new picnic trick? Balance a bottle on your head!?
A typical birthday in the 1960s, card table, plastic tablecloth, Mum's hair!
My brother trying to cut the cake with a boomerang!
Great grandfather sitting on the running board surrounded by ladies 
Great grandfather, his sons and friends picnicking in the sand dunes
Much younger great grandfather (left), next to his mother and sisters
c1895 Black Rock Victoria (his niece, the baby was born in 1894)
Author, Lindsay Russell (centre), 2nd cousin of my grandmother
possibly on the 'shores' of Lake Corangamite, Colac.
Can you spot the silver tea pot? 
I love the happiness in this photo! My Nanna is centre back.
My grandfather's brother (Uncle Ricky - see Anzac day blog) is at back.

26 comments:

  1. A plethora of picnics - great fun.

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  2. Loads of picnics. I searched through my collection and didn't find many at all. Perhaps we have so few occasions for picnics over here they seldom got recorded on film. Your collection more than makes up for my shortage.

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  3. Some classic picnic memories!

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  4. Absolutely wonderful photos of happy gatherings; and I have to disagree wit Brett, you can never have too many picnics!

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  5. Quite a nice selection of photos. My favorite is the 1960s color shot.

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  6. AW, there is something about eating outdoors, the food, (any food) tastes better!!!

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    1. Until the flies come - in Australia we are always fighting flies, ants, mosquitoes on picnics - but we still keep going back for more (picnics that is)

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  7. Wow -- you win! My mom was never one for eating outdoors, so any picnicking I did was with my grandparents and friends, but sadly there are no pictures.

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    1. Thanks, I didn't know it was a competition, just couldn't choose any more to leave out.
      My family have been avid photographers for many decades.

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  8. Wonderful pictures of wonderful times. As I commented in another post, isn't it telling how everyone at a picnic is almost always smiling! Picnics are just plain fun!

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  9. I especially like the one with great grandfather sitting on the running board, though the people in front don't seem to be very happy or simling.

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  10. Lovely picnic shots. I love the billy. Nothing better than billy tea made with a gum leaf and then swung around in a circle to settle the tea leaves. We still do that.

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  11. The Australian weather obviously gives your picnickers an advantage in an impressive collection of family photos.

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  12. Love seeing all the different picnics, everyone has a different idea of what it should include.

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  13. I didn't have a lot of picnic photos either, I guess the weather in Ireland didn't lend itself to them!!
    Love yours.

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  14. What this week proved --- I love picnic photos. Everyone is so animated and happy. By the way, my younger brothers would play act cutting the birthday cakes I baked for them, by hacking away with toy swords and tomahawks. Boys are funny.

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  15. Great fun from so many photographs. I had trouble coming up with two picnic photos. Times and tastes have changed and we no longer seem to go out "just for a "picnic" - mind you the weather here is so unreliable. I have a friend who organised "pyjama picnics " for her grandchildren when they came to stay - held in the house on a rug in front of the fire, once they had changed for bed.

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  16. What a wonderful collection of picnic photos.

    I have some that are similar but decided to go with a different approach.

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  17. What a smashing good fun time this was! I bet that birthday party table and those children just had a wonderful time! Children know how to enjoy life and that photo is picture proof!

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  18. Great collection of picnic photos! You do seem to have quite a family history of outdoor entertaining. But I have to ask ... cutting the cake with a boomerang ... is that really typical??? Undoubtedly fun, though!
    Thanks for sharing all of these!!

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  19. I can't figure out how many generations of picnic-ers you've got in these photos (you're great-great grandmother makes five, I think...), but you're so lucky to have such an amazing group of shots! Great!

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  20. I honestly can't pick out a favorite - they are all loveably fun! I do like seeing the two old cars, though.

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  21. There are some really wonderful shots here that were I too find them at an antique store I'd grab them and be so pleased with my finds. I especially love the last one. It's so doggone happy.

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  22. That Black Rock photo is great - such an early 'snapshot'.

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  23. What a fabulous collection of picnics over the generations. It is so funny to see how dressed up people used to be for a picnic. Most men have ties and jackets.

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