Behind The Photographs

Update March 2014:
Tweetmeme and Krumlr are no longer operating so the information in this post is no longer relevant.

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Tweetmeme is a service which aggregates links on Twitter and displays the popular ones on the TweetMeme site.

Website owners can add a TweetMeme button to any kind of web page and there is a dedicated WordPress plugin which is easy to install.

The advantage to people surfing websites is that when they discover content they like, they can tweet it by hitting the TweetMeme button.

The advantage to website owners is that it gives them a way to enable their visitors to popularize their web pages – one that is very easy for their visitors to use.

In my opinion, the Tweetmeme button is easier, more prominent, and more inviting than the Add This or Add to Any widgets (useful though they are) or any of the other widgets that a web surfer might be invited to click on when he or she visits a web page.

Of course TweetMeme is limited to tweeting to Twitter, but from the website owner’s point of view that can be a powerful way of promoting a page. That’s because each visitor has his or her own circle of Twitter friends, and Twitter is highly interactive.

Krumlr describes itself as social bookmarking on Twitter. When a member adds a web page to Krumlr, they also tweet it.

While Krumlr describes itself as ‘social bookmarking on Twitter’ it is also an appealing social bookmarking site in its own right.

Where Krumlr scores is in the high visibility it gives to its members.

Not only are the web pages – the ‘krums’, I guess – saved, displayed and tweeted, but the Krumlr users themselves – the ones who are feeding those good web pages into Krumlr and onto Twitter – are also featured.

And the more well-regarded web pages a member sends to Krumlr, the more visible that member becomes on the site, thus further promoting the pages he or she has added.

There is always a slight worry with social bookmarking sites. What if the site closes – what happens to all my bookmarks then?

These are views of the cathedral city of York in the north of England. The first was taken this month and the second a year and a half ago when the river Ouse burst its banks, as it has done many times.

The worst of the most recent floods was in the year 2000 when the water all but covered the ground floor windows of the King’s Arms Public House, which is the building with the jettied upper floor in the photographs.

New York

In 1663 the Duke of York – James Stuart, the second son of Charles I and the brother of Charles II – bought Long Island and other islands on the New England coast.

The next year, his forces captured New Amsterdam from the Dutch and he renamed the whole possession the Province of New York.

His province included what are now New York State, New Jersey, Delaware and Vermont, and parts of Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Maine.

The Dutch subsequently recaptured the city of New Amsterdam and it remained Dutch until it was traded back to the English under the Treaty of Westminster in 1674.

The Dutch got the island of Run in Indonesia in exchange – something they were happy enough with at the time as the island of Run was the only place where the nutmeg tree grew and from which the valuable spices nutmeg of and mace could be obtained.

James II

When James Stuart became king he was James II of England and Ireland, and James VII of Scotland in 1685.

His reign lasted three years before he was deposed and forced to escape to France as a result of his attempts to re-establish Catholicism and a stronger throne in England.

He was succeeded by the joint reign of William and Mary, then of Anne, then George I, and George II, until the reign of George III, when New York again changed hands.

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The ‘York Flood’ image is available here as a Quillcards ecard.

It has been a productive month, and we have just added 46 new ecards to our range of ecards here at Quillcards.

You can see the latest 24 of these new ecards in the Recently Added section of Quillcards.

Here is one of the new ecards. It is a photo of the leaves of a Bignonia tree shot against a bright sky on one of the rare days this year with sun here in the north of England.

Behind The Photographs
We have just returned from a trip to London, and while we were there we visited several museums and galleries including the British Museum and the Tate Modern.

Here is another new ecard showing the latticework roof of the British Museum.

Across The Thames
While we at the Tate Modern, the raking light of the late afternoon sun shone onto St. Paul’s Cathedral on the north bank of the Thames.

The cathedral dome rises over the surrounding buildings, competing with the cranes that are an ever-present part of the modern London skyline. The pedestrians are crossing the Thames over the new Millennium Bridge.

The Shakespeare Globe Theatre is just a few minutes walk down river from the Tate Modern, and just a few paces from that is Cardinal’s Wharf, where Christoper Wren lived while overseeing the building of St. Paul’s.

A Commanding Position
We also visited Lincoln recently, and here is a photograph of Lincoln Cathedral seen from over the surrounding buildings. You can find the Lincoln Cathedral ecard here.

Lincoln is a city (by virtue of its having a cathedral) but in reality it is a smallish town.

It is a town of two halves. There is the lower town with its commercial center, and then – on the escarpment above – there is the cathedral around which there is a cluster of classy shops and restaurants, houses and a hotel.

The cathedral faces Lincoln Castle a hundred yards away, and this photograph of the cathedral is taken from the top of the grassy slope that surrounds the castle walls.

The cathedral and the castle were begun under the reign of William the Conqueror after he took the throne following his defeat of the Saxon King Harold at the battle of Hastings in 1066.

There was a Roman castle on the site before that, testifying to the power of the escarpment that is the termination of a long ridge that runs south through the county of Lincolnshire until it terminates here overlooking the river Witham.

Trees
On a different theme entirely is this scene at Temple Newsham – an estate on the outskirts of Leeds here in Yorkshire. The photograph is sepia-toned and is in the style of Samuel Palmer, an artist and printmaker who worked in the Romantic tradition in the 1800s.

Palmer was a contemporary of William Blake, whom he met and whose vision influenced his work. Palmer’s work is very individual, and once seen it is never forgotten.

Finally, you can see our article William Blake: Sedition In Chichester here.