Saturday Scenes

For the past four years, Saturday Scenes has celebrated Self-Portrait Saturday: an annual event where submitters are encouraged to turn the camera around and take photographs of themselves. I make no secret of the fact that I adore the results: a great selection of interesting and charming photographs of so many of the people who submit to Saturday Scenes every week.

If you are wondering who took a photograph, simply hover your mouse over the thumbnail and you should see the Twitter name of the photographer.

Take a look at all these wonderful photographs:

And here are the lovely people who took them:

• icklemouse
• RobStormchaser
• Pewari
• Korwhai
• ClareRevell
• FrauKulli
• martin_chrisj
• raumsinn
• SockYarnShop
• ernmander
• akrabat
• maidbloke
• jamesnnb
• B_Tahnlenes
• JanetIsserlis
• CallumDG
• akaSylvia
• CliffStanford
• carocat
• kittendew
• dudleypj
• mousewords
• mickpound
• robdavies
• annemnicholas
• brooks_beauty
• sahfenn
• nevillefenn

Shouldn’t you save a photograph of your day-to-day life for posterity? It’s easy!

1. Take a photograph on a Saturday
2. Upload the photograph
3. Send the link to @SatScenes with the location
4. Leave URL for future descendants to find

I’m looking forward to seeing your photograph in the next edition!

On the 16th of June in 1963, Valentina Tereshkova became the first civilian and the first woman to fly in space. Tereshkova was a textile worker in a local factory when she made her first skydiving jump at the age of 22. In 1961, the chief Soviet rocket engineer became interested in putting a woman in space. The rocket ship was completely automatic so piloting experience was not necessary …but parachuting experience was essential as the cosmonaut would be ejected upon re-entry.

Four hundred women applied for the first female cosmonaut corps, of which five were selected, including Tereshkova.

Valentina Tereshkova – Wikipedia

Qualifications included that they be parachutists under 30 years of age, under 170 cm (5 feet 7 inches) tall, and under 70 kg (154 lbs.) in weight.

Tereshkova was considered a particularly worthy candidate, partly due to her “proletarian” background, and because her father, tank leader sergeant Vladimir Tereshkov, was a war hero.

Training included weightless flights, isolation tests, centrifuge tests, rocket theory, spacecraft engineering, 120 parachute jumps and pilot training in MiG-15UTI jet fighters.

Tereshkova was 26 when she launched into space in the Vostok 6. She orbited the earth 48 times over three days, logging more flight time than the combined times of all American astronauts who had flown before that date. After the trip, she studied at the Zhukovsky Air Force Academy and graduated with distinction as a cosmonaut engineer.

Meanwhile, on the 16th of June in 2012 many out-of-this-world photographs were taken:

And here are the stars that took them:

• raumsinn
• FrauKulli
• akrabat
• SockYarnShop
• arcticpixie
• Joyuna
• ernmander
• rnout
• kittendew
• oxonlady
• icklemouse
• dudleypj
• CallumDG
• HeideSpruck
• robdavies
• twasntme
• jamesnnb
• drewbenn
• mousewords
• B_Tahnlenes
• tonystanford
• Dianitaborda85
• akaSylvia
• T_Northernbloke
• Denrael
• evenstar84
• HarryMyhre
• carocat
• timewind
• Korwhai
• sahfenn
• noirem

Next week: Self-Portrait Saturday! Just like every other Saturday except that you are invited — encouraged even! — to turn the camera around and take a photograph of yourself. Would you like inspiration? Take a look at the last three years of self-portraits:

• Who Are You: June 2009
• Who Are You: June 2010
• Who Are You: July 2011

The rules are simple: You have to take the photograph on Saturday, just like every other week! Simply send it in with a location and we’ll end up with a great collage.

You don’t have to take a self-portrait if you don’t want to but it sure is fun to see the faces behind the lens.

See you on Saturday?

On the 9th of June in 1892, Tsukioka Yoshitoshi died in a rented room, following almost a decade of mental problems. Yoshitoshi was the last and greatest master of traditional ukiyo-e, Japanese woodblock printing. Ukiyo-e dates back to the 16th century and the well-known example of “Japanese art”, View of Mount Fuji, is an example of this genre. When Japan opened to imports from the West in 1868, photography largely replaced ukiyo-e, which fell so far out of fashion that the worthless prints were often used as packing material.

Yoshitoshi – Wikipedia

Like many Japanese, Yoshitoshi was interested in new things from the rest of the world, but over time he became increasingly concerned with the loss of many aspects of traditional Japanese culture, among them traditional woodblock printing.

By the end of his career, Yoshitoshi was in an almost single-handed struggle against time and technology. As he worked on in the old manner, Japan was adopting Western mass reproduction methods like photography and lithography. Nonetheless, in a Japan that was turning away from its own past, he almost singlehandedly managed to push the traditional Japanese woodblock print to a new level, before it effectively died with him.

Yoshitoshi insisted on high standards of production and created over 10,000 prints. There have been multiple attempts to catalog his full collection. His work, amazing and often disturbing, can be seen on Yoshitoshi 100 Aspects of the Moon and by choosing the fifth artist on the Nagoya Online Museum (requires Flash).

One hundred and twenty years later, ukiyo-e continues to have fans but there’s no denying that photography holds the lead. And on the 9th of June in 2012, these beautiful photographs were taken:

And these were the people who took them:

• SockYarnShop
• CarolineBignell
• martin_chrisj
• ClareRevell
• sweeneyjf
• twasntme
• rnout
• HarryMyhre
• CallumDG
• RAFairman
• waleedalzuhair
• akrabat
• ingridf
• ernmander
• raumsinn
• robdavies
• icklemouse
• Pewari
• AlistairRae
• seeperry
• oxonlady
• akaSylvia
• maidbloke
• noirem
• jamesnnb
• KennPFC
• CliffStanford
• mousewords
• drewbenn
• pixelesh
• timewind
• Denrael
• Fatal_Rabbit
• DaughterofLir
• brooks_beauty
• B_Tahnlenes
• sahfenn

Every year we do a self-portrait Saturday! It’s just like every other Saturday except that you are invited — encouraged even! — to turn the camera around and take a photograph of yourself. We’ve done this three years in a row now:

• Who Are You: June 2009
• Who Are You: June 2010
• Who are You: July 2011

This year, it’ll be on the 23rd of June so coming up quick. I hope to see you!

On the 2nd of June in 1957, the Franklin was launched as a part of Operation Plumbbob, a series of nuclear experiments at the Nevada Test Site. The Franklin test was of a XW-30 warhead, a boosted all-oralloy fission design. It fizzled, yielding only 7% of its predicted 2 kilotonnes (equivalent weight in TNT) yield.

However, the next tests were more successful and the Pascal B, fired in August 1957, may have led to the first man-made object propelled into orbit.

Operation Plumbbob

Brownlee put the bomb at the bottom of a 500-foot vertical tunnel in the Nevada desert, sealing the opening with a four-inch thick steel plate weighing several hundred pounds. He knew the lid would be blown off; he didn’t know exactly how fast.

High-speed cameras caught the giant manhole cover as it began its unscheduled flight into history. Based upon his calculations and the evidence from the cameras, Brownlee estimated that the steel plate was traveling at a velocity six times that needed to escape Earth’s gravity when it soared into the flawless blue Nevada sky. ‘We never found it. It was gone,’ Brownlee says, a touch of awe in his voice almost 35 years later.

The following October the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, billed as the first man-made object in Earth orbit. Brownlee has never publicly challenged the Soviet’s claim. But he has his doubts.

Fifty-five years later, on the 2nd of June 2012, the following photographs sky-rocketed in popularity once they were tweeted to SatScenes:

And these are the star-bound sensations who took them!

• raumsinn
• RAFairman
• robdavies
• Pewari
• oxonlady
• ClareRevell
• SockYarnShop
• martin_chrisj
• SoullessMachine
• akrabat
• Korwhai
• jamesnnb
• ernmander
• gwenthing
• dudleypj
• mousewords
• drewbenn
• DaughterofLir
• noirem
• icklemouse
• evenstar84
• thermalhound
• sahfenn
• B_Tahnlenes
• akaSylvia
• rnout

We want to see MORE photographs of more places! Simply tweet the location of your photograph (taken on a Saturday) to @SatScenes to be included.

Follow SatScenes for more details and you’ll never miss another edition.