Most Popular Posts of 2021

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 having been posted: others continue to be viewed as time goes on. In 2020, for example, the most-viewed post was published in 2018.

I often look at the analytics of my blog to determine which subjects my readers like the most and which ones are not as popular, and this can help me steer The Brown Knowser in a way that will hopefully appeal to you in the future.

I'm not including the most-recent posts, as they are still being viewed and may or may not earn a spot on this list. Going forward—if this idea goes forward, that is, I may make a list that runs from December of the previous year to the beginning of December for the current year.

If you've read these posts before and liked them, thank you. If you haven't read them already and are wanting to read more from The Brown Knowser, I hope this list will offer some direction on what to read next.

Think of this post as a recap of the year, but with only the best 10 posts, as determined by their popularity. Here we go...

10. Negative Space: This post was about one of my first attempts of a double-exposure shot, taken with my trusty Minolta X-700. The moon and church were on either side of me, and the resulting shot left for some interesting negative space that I filled with fireworks, this year, and placed in another post. Apparently, a lot of you liked this post enough to place it in the top 10 popular posts of 2021. Cool.

9. Two Days, Three Castles: I suppose a lot of people cancelled vacations during the pandemic. Perhaps, like me, you opted to travel vicariously. For me, it was a trip down memory lane. DW's and my 1991 trip to England and Wales had me falling in love with the Medieval period and old castles.

8. Naming That Tune: Who doesn't love the game of guessing the name of a song? I know I do, and apparently, so did a lot of readers.

7. Photo Funk: I was in a dark mood when I wrote this post. Perhaps many of you empathized or shared my funk.

6. The Bard's Town: The post that started off my recounting of DW's and my 1991 England and Wales trip, starting with a race from London to Stratford-Upon-Avon. Geez, now I long to be back in the UK.

5. Ticked Off: I had never been more sick for so long in my life. And with tick season still chugging along, many readers checked in to see how I fared through Lyme Disease.

4. A Sign: This is actually an ongoing saga. Books still fill my house. If you're interested in taking any, let me know.

3. Abbey in Ruins: The England-Wales series really received a lot of attention, but none more than DW's and my stop at Valle Crucis Abbey. The photos were enhanced, and maybe the one with the lavender sunset sky drew people to the post.

2. Under the Falls: I really didn't expect this post to be the one of the most popular of 2021 but I can see why. This is not an angle of the Rideau Falls that many people see. I was in my kayak, only a few feet above the surface of the Ottawa River. Seeing this post so popular, I guess I'll be headed back sometime in 2022.

1. Me, The Ginch: For some reason, the 2016 edition of my traditional Christmas tale got a lot of attention this year. It garnered enough views to appear in my Popular This Month section, on the right-hand margin, and once it was there, the readership exploded. Who knew that so many folks were eager for a Christmas story, but why the 2016 version? And why was it so popular this year, so much so that it is the most-read post this year?

For 2021, I made a few tweaks and hopefully improved the story. If you haven't seen it yet, give it a read (the link for this post points to the latest version).

So, what did you think? Do you have a favourite post that didn't make the top-10 list? Let me know in the Comments section.

Thanks again for reading The Brown Knowser!