Form:   Iambic pentameter sonnet using either the Petrarchan rhyme scheme (abbaabba | cdcdcd) or the Shakespearean (ababcdcd | efef gg).

Theme: An old photograph.

Method: Your goal is to adapt the descriptive bias of the theme to the dramatic frame of the sonnet, with its built-in shift in argument (the volta, or turn) between the octave and the sestet. The turn might take a number of forms: a shift from the specific to the general (or vice versa), from the plain to the complex, from point to counterpoint. A main part of your task here is to select the right details -- the ones most able to mean beyond themselves. 
 
Restrictions:  Try to include at least one sentence that extends over more than two lines. 

Readings in Strand & Boland: 

Shakespeare, 59
Milton, 60
Shelley, 62
Millay, 64
Cummings, 66
Barker, 66
Johnson, 68
Salter, 69

Readings on-line: 

Donald Justice, My South: On the Porch