The Brown Knowser

Last Sunday, I led a group of Ottawa photographers through Centretown on a photo walk. They are all a great bunch of people who have a keen eye for the subtleties that make the world interesting. I think that you should all go to the Flickr page that we've set up to share our photos. Go often, because I think that some of us are still adding photos. One of my personal favourites that I shot was of two buildings on O'Connor street. If you've seen my photos from Wordless Wednesday , you've already seen it. I was standing near the Dominion-Chalmers United Church , looking north, when the natural contrast of the buildings caught my eye. The office tower in the background dominated the apartment building in the foreground; the simple striped pattern of its exterior was striking from the uniform balconies. I shot this photo with my Nikon D80, with my 70-300mm lens set at 100mm; I used a shutter speed of 1/640 and an aperture of f/8.0. I also adjusted the ...

For part 1 of this post, see Gammon . Or go to Part 2 or Part 3 . The following post is a fictionalization of the story about how I created a character and then became him in order to make him as believable as possible for my novel, Songsaengnim: A Korea Diary . The following recount is based on actual events, though some of the details have been altered to protect identities. Most of the dialog is almost word for word. SPOILER ALERT: THE FOLLOWING POST DESCRIBES MUCH OF MY NOVEL AND REVEALS SOME SUSPENSEFUL ASPECTS OF THE STORY. IF THAT'S COOL WITH YOU, READ ON. IF YOU ARE READING MY BOOK OR ARE PLANNING TO AND YOU LIKE SURPRISES, COME BACK TOMORROW. "Roland, we're so glad you're here. There's someone we want you to meet." It had been several weeks since I had last been in the pub and the enthusiasm from the regulars piqued my curiosity. And then brought on a moment of sheer panic. "There's a guy here that we want you to meet. He's fr...

More photos on Flickr .

Dear Mill Street (and you know who you are), When I go to a restaurant or pub, I have certain expectations: I expect to be seated (or find a seat by myself); I expect to be served in a courteous manner; I expect that what I order will be correctly served to me. When I leave that restaurant or pub, I expect to leave satisfied. If I don't leave satisfied, I never return. I tell everybody about it. And so, today, I want to tell everyone about you. In the seven months that I have been visiting your establishment, not once have you met my expectations. You've exceeded them. This weekend, I organized my fourth tweetup at the Mill Street Brew Pub . When I have chosen a date for my event, I don't call and make reservations: I talk to the manager, suggesting a date. If he doesn't object, there's nothing else I need to do. It gets done. I expect a table that will seat the estimated number of guests. That's all I expect. A table, and chairs. Each...

I love living on the border of Ontario and Québec: not only do I have exposure to Canada's two official languages, I get to sample beer from both sides. And because I live in Ontario but work in Québec, I cross the border several times each week. Both Ontario and La belle province have a thriving beer industry, as was evidenced at last weekend's Craft Beer Week festival . While the majority of the breweries that attended the nine-day event were from Ontario, one brewery is based in Montréal: McAuslan . I've been drinking McAuslan's beer for years. Their St-Ambroise Oatmeal Stout is my all-time favourite stout. I love the smokey flavour and hints of dark chocolate intertwined. It's not a creamy, smooth-drinking stout, but I'm not known for consuming easy-drinking beer. I love that in-your-face flavour. I guess that's why I also love the smokey, peatiness of a good Islay single-malt scotch (FYI: Laphroaig and St-Ambroise Oatmeal Stout are an exce...

As this post goes out, I'm not enjoying today. My family had gone off to camp and I'm stuck at work, slogging it out to meet a deadline. It's not that I'm upset because I'm missing out on some camping. That's not it: I lost my interest in camping a few years ago and haven't seen it since. No, I'm upset because this is the second-last weekend for the summer holidays, before my kids return to school, and I'm not sharing it with them. Sucks to be me. But do you know what will make me happy? If you would take some time to sit back and read my blog posts of the past week. Maybe leave me a comment or two. That'd be great. Thanks. Here's what happened this week on The Brown Knowser : Beer O'Clock: The Accidental Photographer —I was going to be there anyway, so I was happy to help. As for the second accident, that wasn't so good. LinkedOut —stepping back from one of my first social networks. It's not you, it's me. I don...

Sometimes, nature can be dramatic; other times, it needs a little help. On Sunday, I was in my back yard, catching up on some much-needed gardening, when I felt the winds pick up and the temperature cooled. Looking up, I saw some clouds moving in and two unusual columns were building out of the top of it, almost like the antennae of an insect, or two heads of turtles, or of two dinosaurs. Or two columns of fear. I had my iPhone in my back pocket, my ear buds plugged in, music flowing into my brain. Pulling it out, I tried to capture the image as it was quickly changing shape. It was a pretty dramatic sky, warning my of the impending storm that hit us a short time later. But in my mind, these clouds needed more drama. Enter: Camera+ and about three effects... My wife accuses me of adding drama to everything. I think she may be right. Happy Friday!

For part 1 of this post, click here . As you may have figured by now, the following post is a fictionalization of the story of how I created a character and then became him in order to make him as believable as possible for my novel, Songsaengnim: A Korea Diary . The following recount is based on actual events, though some of the details have been altered to protect identities. SPOILER ALERT: THE FOLLOWING POST DESCRIBES MUCH OF MY NOVEL AND REVEALS SOME SUSPENSEFUL ASPECTS OF THE STORY. IF THAT'S COOL WITH YOU, READ ON. I returned a couple of days later. I didn't want Shannon to think she had offended me. I wanted her to feel that she hadn't done anything wrong: after all, it was I who was doing something underhanded, was about to deceive in every possible way. To gammon. Everything I was going to say and do was not going to be me. Everything I was going to say and do was going to come from Roland Axam. When I returned to the pub, Michelle and John were in their ...

National Capital Beer Week Festival, Ottawa:

Sometimes, being too connected is too much. For a couple of years, now, I've had a LinkedIn account and have met some really fabulous people. I've read many, many articles and have joined and started several discussions about writing and photography. It's been great. To date, I have 632 connections that link me to more than 6.6-million "professionals." That's a helluva lotta people. Too many, I think, and not just the 6.6-million LinkedIn people. I mean the 632. When I connected to the first hundred people, they were mostly friends and people I had worked with at past jobs, and people I currently work with. But then I joined some writers and photographer groups, and I connected with individuals from those groups, mostly those who started interesting discussions or participated in them. When my number of connections was a couple of hundred, I still felt I knew these people (knew them enough to want to converse with them). Many of those f...

I first met JP Fournier, president of the National Capital Craft Beer Week , at the opening party at D'Arcy McGee's. You may remember that event from last week's post . At that event, we exchanged business cards and pleasantries, and I got up close for photos with him, other festival organizers, and the mayor. The next time I ran into JP was just inside the grounds of this weekend's beer festival, at Marion Dewar Plaza at city hall. It was a serendipitous meeting: I was just entering the festival grounds, he was just heading out. We shook hands and he saw my camera equipment. And then he asked: "Are you going to be at the event for both days?" "Yes," I replied. I was really looking forward to meeting the brewers and checking out their brews. But JP was not simply making conversation. I noticed that he was still glancing at my camera bag. JP had a problem, and it appeared that I was going to be his solution. Apparently, the photographer...

Where did this week go? I don't know about you, but time flew for me this week. It seems like only the other day, I was giving you the low-down on last week's posts. Now, here we are again. For those of you who save up all of your Brown Knowser reading for the weekend, here's where my mind was this week: Beer O'Clock: It's National Capital Capital Craft Beer Week, Baby! —August 10 marked the start of the first-ever Craft Beer Week in Ottawa, and I was there to help celebrate. Ottawa's Castle —it took almost exactly a week, but this month's Where In Ottawa challenge was finally solved. Wordless Wednesday: Under Water —when we were on vacation, we went snorkeling off the shores of Key Largo, Florida. I bought a disposable underwater camera: thought I'd share. Gammon, Part 2 —the continuation of my story of Roland Axam, and how I pretended to be him to create a story. Photo Friday: Paint it! Now —a review of another photo-editing app for ...

My iPhone has lots of photo apps that I like to play with from time to time when I'm bored or just want to use for a photo that isn't that great but is also something I'm not yet ready to delete. A long time ago, I wrote about one of these apps: ColorSplash . I still use that app every once and awhile; most recently to try and reproduce a picture that I shot in Edinburgh—the pint of Belhaven Best from that same post. This new shot isn't as good as the old photo, but I'm considering using it for an upcoming beer review. Another app that I've had for about a year or so is one by Corel: Paint it! Now . This app allows you to render a photo to look like a painting. If you follow me on Instagram, you've seen some of these photos used with this app. (Actually, I'm sure I've used some of those photos in The Brown Knowser , but I'm not going to search for an example.) There are various painting styles that you can apply with Paint ...