The Brown Knowser

For me, 2021 will be seen as the year where I lost the will to leave my house to take photos. Indeed, I rarely picked up my Nikon D750 and when I used my D7200, it was mostly in my backyard, photographing birds at the feeder or flowers blossoming in spring. More times than not, the only camera on me was the one on my smartphone. But as the saying goes, the best camera for the job is the one you have with you. For most of the year, I also revisited old photos, ones that I had shot decades ago with my Minolta X-700. I looked at old slide photos and tried to bring new life to them, using the photo-editing software that I received at the end of 2020. So, while I have lots of photos to share for my annual, year-end post, there are the odd images, retooled and given a new life in 2021. As always, I hope you enjoy them. Januarys are always tough for me. I really hate the cold and the first month of the year typically brings us some of the deepest freezes. But the beginning of January, this ye...

I'm trying something new at The Brown Knowser . Tomorrow, as I have done every December 31 over the past 10 years, I'll be posting what I feel are the best photographs that I've shot over the course of this year. These photos are purely subjective and are based solely on how I feel about the photos. I hope, of course, that you'll like them, too. Years ago, I used to post a recap list on Saturdays of what I had published during the previous week. It was a summary of what I had posted, and I learned that many readers visited those posts, rather than read the blog, daily, from Monday to Friday. These readers would see the summary and click whichever links interested them. But today, I'm showing a list of blog posts that I've published over the year to the final week of December. This Top 10 list was chosen based on the number of views these blog posts have earned over the course of this year. Some posts garnered a lot of views in the first day or two after havi...

I first posted this story in 2011 and have made it my holiday tradition ever since. For its tenth anniversary, I've made some minor edits. If you haven't read it before, I hope you enjoy it. If you have read it before, I'm hoping that you make it your holiday tradition in reading it again. Merry Christmas and best wishes for a safe and happy holiday season! At first, we did it out of excitement for the season and impatience, unable to wait until morning. Later, it became a game about how far we could go, about how much risk we were willing to take. It was a test in organizational skills and stealth. In time, it would become a ritual. The first time we crept from our bedrooms and down the stairs, anxious to see what Santa had left us, my younger sister, Jen, and I faced our biggest obstacle: each other. "Go to bed," I whispered, not wanting her to make any noise, thereby arousing the attention of our parents, who had only a half hour ago, or earlier, had gone to be...

First told in December, 2014, this Christmas tale is now a  Brown Knowser  holiday repeat. If you're new to my blog, I hope you enjoy it; if you've read it before, I hope that it puts you in the holiday spirit. He  never cared for Secret Santas in the office, or anywhere, for that matter.  He  d id n't feel the need to pick a random name from a hat and then try to figure out something about  that practical stranger  ( he  just kn e w  that, as luck  would have it, he would  pick  the name of someone  that worked in a distant part of the office, someone that he  d id n't know well), and he would then spend money and time choosing a gift that  would  not enrich the life of that individual , would not be something  t hat  would  give th at individual  anything that  he or she would  truly want. He  used to participate in Secret Santa at work, feeling compelled by peer pressure...

This blog post was originally posted on December 20, 2011, and has become a traditional  Brown Knowser  holiday tale. For 2021, I've cleaned it up a bit and brought it up to date, now that my kids have grown. If you have read it before, I hope you enjoy it again. If this is your first read, I hope it won't be your last. © 1966 Warner Home Video. All rights reserved. On some level, I'm not a fan of Christmas. I'm not interested in decorating nor in sending out cards (actually, the Brown Knowser family has pretty much given up on that front), nor, especially, in heading to the stores to shop. I hate going near shopping malls and department stores at this time of year: fighting crowds, standing in lines, searching for that ever-elusive parking space. Not being religious, the spiritual side of Christmas is lost on a cynic like me. Our family doesn't go to church or participate in rituals that have long ago been stolen from the Pagans. We have no manger on display, no an...

We thought that the Christmas of 2020 was the worst one. We were well into the second, great wave of the coronavirus and nonessential travel was restricted. Governments and healthcare experts were urging us to limit gatherings to the people with whom you resided. Lots of people, sadly, ignored these warnings, driving the number of positive COVID-19 test results through the roof. People who heeded the warnings and kept to themselves lamented that Christmas Day was the worst in living memory. People who didn't heed the warning lamented that spreading their germs, possibly killing loved ones, made Christmas 2020 the worst, ever. For me, Christmas 2020 was disappointing. Our family tradition is to have our extended family members visit us for a lavish brunch of potato and bacon pie, spiral ham, cheesy scrambled eggs, orange and spinach salad, and Christmas stollen. In 2020, no one was invited over. Instead, DW and I still baked the pie, and DW made her delicious stollen. Instead of roa...

I originally called this photo my "exploding tree" because it looked like energy was being violently emitted away from our Christmas tree's core. "Warp speed" sounds friendlier, given the time of year. I can't remember what year I took this photo, but it must have been in the mid to late 1980s. I was experimenting with zoom exposures, where you change the zoom factor of the lens while the shutter is open. My Minolta X-700 was mounted on a tripod and I used a cable release for the shutter, which was set to Bulb, which meant that it would stay open for as long as I had decided (that is, counting the seconds in my head). Keeping as steady a hand as possible, I carefully and steadily twisted the lens to move into the tree, making the lights seemingly move at the speed of... um... light. Of course, I wouldn't have learned whether the shot worked or not until about a week or so later, when I received the processed slides from the lab. I found this 35mm slide a...

Sunset in Cuba, from our 2017 trip. Today, DW and I are away. We have finally climbed aboard an aircraft for the first time since before the pandemic and gotten away from Canada. The last time we were on an airplane, together, was in April of 2019, when we were returning home after spending a week in the Mayan Riviera, celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary. The last time I've flown was when I went to South Korea, in May, 2019, on my own. But today, we have gone back to Cuba, where we'll spend the next week soaking in the warm Caribbean sun, snorkeling, swimming, relaxing, eating, and drinking. I have to admit that at times, I didn't think this was going to happen. In the weeks—and then days—leading up to our departure, my stress levels have gone through the roof. I wasn't sure I wanted to board a plane. Wasn't sure if I'd be comfortable at a resort that would be filled with total strangers. I didn't want to be in a country where my Internet access was...

When DW and I were first dating, we decided to go for a cool treat at our local Dairy Queen, on Merivale Road, at Clyde Avenue. On this trip, we were with her best friend, Catheleen. They were trying to decide what they wanted to order when they asked me what I was going to get. "Oh, I'll just get my usual," I casually said as I drove my Pontiac Sunbird toward our destination. The girls took that as something mysterious, though it really wasn't. When I got up to the counter, I requested a chocolate milkshake. Nothing special. I just like simple, chocolate milkshakes. I still make them, every once and awhile, at home. The last time that I made any kind of specialty milkshake was a couple of years ago. I remember it well because I was making it to share with my kids. Searching the refrigerator, I pulled out fresh raspberries and a jar of peanut butter. I also added a banana and a squirt of chocolate syrup to the scoops of vanilla ice cream and cold milk. It was pre...

We enticed her out with the promise of fantastic scones. Thing 2 (our younger daughter: I'm not sure if the new nickname will stick) doesn't like to get out of bed before noon if she doesn't have to. Most of her classes at university aren't until the afternoon, or are late in the morning, mostly because she's studying music and performance jazz, and most of the students hone their skills by performing in music halls, often until the wee hours of the morning. Sometimes, she doesn't get back to her campus residence until about 3 am. When she was back home for her reading week, in November, Thing 2 didn't go out to all hours but she did still like to sleep in. She often skipped breakfast, having her first meal at lunchtime. When DW and I wanted to head out to Mud Lake to search for an owl and to photograph the ducks and other birds, we planned to cap off our hike with a stop for breakfast at  The Beachconers Microcreamery . We knew that we wouldn't be ...