Standstill

sedition (n)
    Conduct or speech inciting people to rebel against the authority of a state or monarch*

treason (n)
    The crime of betraying one's country, especially by attempting to kill the sovereign or overthrow the government*

insurrection (n)
    A violent uprising against an authority or government*

I haven't tuned into a live broadcast coming out of the United States since September 11, 2001. On that sunny day, I started my day like any other. I was in the office, just beginning my day, when DW called me. She was at home, on maternity leave with our first child, and she had been listening to CBC Radio. After initial reports that an airplane had crashed into one of the towers of the World Trade Center, in New York City, she switched on the news to get a clearer idea of what had happened, and then phoned me to let me know.

When I tried to search the information for more news, my Internet slowed down and I couldn't get anything, so I asked DW to turn up the volume on the television so that I could follow along.

At one point, DW told me that someone had captured the collision on video, only to say, "Oh my God, this is live! Another plane has flown into the other tower!"

I had her keep me on the phone and I related the news to my colleagues, who were sitting near me. A dark buzz of conversation washed over the entire office space. Like so many offices around the world, work came to a standstill as the horror unfolded.

Eventually, we were told to go home and hug our loved ones.

Yesterday, as I was working from home, I periodically checked Twitter for news about the US Congress tally of electoral college votes, mixed with the pro-Tr@mp rally that was happening outside the Capitol grounds. When I saw that the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, was about to speak, I tuned into a live PBS feed and listened as I continued to work.

As the proceedings were underway, I heard reports that the rally-goers were climbing the steps to the Capitol, where the security and police found themselves outnumbered. I started paying more attention to the reports and started to relay the news to DW, who shares our home office.

Photo source unknown, via Twitter.

Things escalated as Tr@mp supporters began breaking windows on the Capitol Building and forced their way inside. The Senate and House were evacuated, and I listened as PBS reporter, Lisa Desjardins, reported from inside. This is when my work was completely distracted, and I was drawn in to watch the live video footage and to various Twitter reports from various news outlets.

It almost felt like 9/11 all over again. I felt everything come to a standstill. This time, however, the terrorists were domestic and they weren't just looking to cause death and destruction, they were looking to obliterate the country's entire democracy.

Photo source unknown, via Twitter.

All at the encouragement of D@n@ld Tr@mp.

This is sedition. This is treason. This is an insurrection. For it to go unchallenged would be an utter failure.

The government of 2001 went after its enemies who were in a foreign country. With the change of leadership, it must go after its enemies on home soil.

The world continues to watch. So far, what we see is embarrassing.

* Oxford Dictionary, online

Purple Finches

 

New Year

It's the only New Year's resolution that I've ever kept: more than 25 years ago, I resolved to never again make a New Year's resolution.

In January of 2020, I decided to participate in Dry January, where I would refrain from consuming alcohol for that month. It wasn't a resolution to reduce my alcohol consumption, which is not a problem. I simply wanted to take a break from it. In doing so, I managed to find some really good alcohol-free beer, so it was a win-win situation.

But my month-long abstinence from alcohol wasn't a resolution. And, as 2020 turned into the nightmare from which we still haven't quite awaken, my alcohol consumption actually increased as I began ordering my beer online and having it delivered to my doorstep. (Hey, I was making an effort to support the breweries and keep them afloat!)

I've been considering whether I should try Dry January, once again, this year, but I've been on the fence. On one hand, I've already done it. I have nothing to prove and I don't think I want to make it a ritual. I'll still look for alcohol-free beer and may review anything that I find worthy. But so far (by the time I've written this post, anyway), I haven't consumed any alcohol. I just haven't felt the desire, and two migraines in the first two days of the year have not helped.

While I haven't declared a resolution in decades, I still look at the new year as a time when I can make some changes which are, hopefully, for the better. Over the Christmas holidays, in which I traditionally eat more food, particularly foods that are bad for me, and I notice that my waistline seems to increase (or, more accurately, the belly above my waist expands—I haven't changed the waist size of my pants in more than a decade).

Beginning on December 30, DW and I have both decided that we would become active for at least 20 minutes a day. We had actually started doing this at the start of the pandemic lockdown, where we would go for walks every day. For me, though, as the summer dragged on and into fall, I didn't go out every day. Sometimes, weeks would go by where I wasn't active at all, and I could feel my health suffering.

DW, breaking in her new snowshoes.

Since the end of December, we've gotten out for photo walks, for walks through places like the Arboretum and the Fletcher Wildlife Gardens. With the recent snowfall, I've shovelled the driveway and we've broken out our new snowshoes. DW has waxed up her cross-country skis and hit the trails. I've spent time on our spin bike, which had been gathering dust in the corner of our bedroom.

It's not a resolution to become fit; rather, it was a conscious decision to become active again. It's returning to a norm that was all but forgotten. It was easy for me, during the pandemic, to hide away inside the house. But it seems that the tide may be slowly turning on COVID, and I want to return to the active person that I was.

When the snow is gone and the weather is warmer, I want to be able to jump on my bike or hop in my kayak. I want to be able to strap my camera bag on my back and go anywhere. And I don't want the winter to be filled with the inactivity that would make those activities harder.

It's not a resolution: it's a revival.

New Apps (For Me)

For years, I have been editing my digital photos with software that I have acquired through DW, who works for a company that makes this very software. Because she works for this company, she receives the latest and greatest versions of this software for free.

I knew I married her for a reason.

Because of my good fortune, this is the only software I have used to turn my basic photos into half-decent images. As I became more familiar with the software, I moved from shooting in JPEG format to shooting in RAW, and the quality of my output improved greatly.

Of course, I've also used photo-editing apps, such as Snapseed and Prisma, among others over the years, but I've only used these when editing photos from my smartphone or tablet, and rarely did I keep these edited photos after posting them on social media apps.

Last fall, DW began investigating some apps, as she usually does when she was comparing her company's product to the competition, and she decided to show a couple of them to me, out of curiosity. She wanted me to watch some of their demo videos and to give my impression.

I'm not one who likes to putter around and spend lots of time on computers. It's a great irony for me, working in a high-tech industry and using computers, when I really don't like to mess with them. Sure, I'm fine using a computer to write or use social media, but I don't like digging around with a computer to figure out how something works. I like programs to be easy to use and to be reliable.

It took me a few years to become comfortable using our existing photo-editing software, and when our latest version came out with a new look and feel, I was in panic mode until DW showed me a way of brining the app back to its classic appearance.

So when DW wanted me to look at different software, I was a bit reluctant. But she made me watch their demonstration videos before forming any opinions.

Of course, the videos showed amazing photos look even more amazing. Some even transformed a photo to look nothing like what you would have seen with the naked eye. Effects were added to change an image into a vision of fantasy.

After watching the videos, I told DW that I liked one feature from product A, another feature from product B. I said that product C seemed complicated but the results were stunning.

"I'm considering buying one of these apps," DW said. Last March, on my birthday, I used a gift card that was given to me to put towards a camera that DW had been eyeing. At the time, we made it clear that the camera would be hers but that I would be allowed to use it to make my Brown Knowser YouTube videos. And since she's had that camera, DW has renewed her long-dormant interest in photography.

A few weeks later, DW purchased two of the apps that we had looked at: Affinity Photo and On1 Photo RAW 2021. She liked the features of Affinity that were similar to or better than her company's product and the photo-organizing abilities of On1, and couldn't decide which she preferred, so she bought both.

Not being interested in learning new software, happy to be using the free version of PaintShop Pro 2021 (PSP), I let DW play with the new apps.

For Christmas, DW told me that she bought me a license for a newly released product, Luminar AI. We had seen the videos for this photo-editing app and I had commented that I liked some of the special-effects features more than the other apps, so she saved this program to give to me over the holidays.

We also have had versions of Corel After Shot Pro, which I used when it first came out but haven't used in years. So we now own five photo-editing programs and I think I'm overwhelmed.

The first program that I tried with a batch of new photos that were still on both my Nikon D7200 and D750 cameras was Luminar AI. After all, it was the program that DW gave to me for Christmas and was truly the only one that was mine.

One of the things that turns me off from a photo-editing program is how difficult it can be to open a file and start editing it. With PSP, you can click File, Open, and navigate to your photo or you can click the Manage tab, navigate to the folder that contains the photos that you want to edit, and pull them all in.

After Shot is much more convoluted and I would often have to call DW to the computer to show me how to start.

Luminar AI isn't as straightforward but it was easy enough to start working on a photo. A simple plus sign (+) at the top lets you edit a single image or open a folder and work on several at a time. You can manage a catalog of photos, use a variety of preset templates, much like filters in Instagram and Snapseed. Editing the photo is as simple as what I'm used to with PSP, though there are some features that I need to learn (but once I understand what they do, they're pretty straightforward).

Luminar AI also has some wild special effects in its Creative mode, and I played around with photos that were shot with overcast skies, changing the sky to show the Milky Way or add lightning to the clouds. There are so many creative effects and I'll start playing with them more over time.

But I have found that Luminar AI doesn't have the capability to create high-dynamic-range (HDR) photos from multiple files, though it does allow you to apply an HDR-like effect from a single photo (PSP does both).

I also find Luminar AI to be a bit slow, due to the AI requiring lots of memory to do its magic. And the preset macros tend to give a lot of punch to an image, which I then have to tone down if I want a more natural appearance.

I found On1 to be a bit more complicated in finding a starting point but as I became more familiar, it wasn't as difficult. Because I use my own method of organizing my photos, though, I did find saving my photos more involved, and I wasn't crazy about the overall results with my photos after editing them.

I'm sure that most of my problems were through user error, but it will ultimately come down to which program lets me edit the most quickly and gives me the image that I want.

I really liked the ease of the HDR rendering with Affinity, which gave me a better result than with PSP. But I did find that I had to work harder on a single file to make the image pop. Some photos came out looking rather flat, compared with other apps.

The following images were taken from a single RAW file. While editing, I did not look to the other images for comparison: I simply worked within each app until I got the photo to look as good as I could without overdoing it, though sometimes that didn't happen. Keep in mind that in the RAW photo file, the sky is totally blown out and the clouds do not appear in the sky nor in the reflection. Editing brought out the clouds.

See which one you like the best.

Affinity Photo

Luminar AI

On1 Photo RAW 2021

PaintShop Pro 2021

Which image do you like the best? When I first created these new photos, I shared them on Twitter, asking my peeps which photo they liked the best. Overall, most of the respondents chose the photo that was edited through Luminar AI.

I also went back to my photos of Horseshoe Bend, in Page, Arizona, which I had originally processed with the PSP app that we had in the spring of 2016. I layered five files, each shot at -2.0 EV, -1.0 EV, 0 EV, +1.0 EV, and +2.0 EV. Both Affinity and On1 could handle the five layers but Luminar AI could not, so I worked with the file that was shot at 0 EV and used some of the AI and preset effects to get an acceptable image. Have a look:

Affinity Photo, HDR (five files)

Luminar AI, single file (no HDR)

On1 Photo RAW 2021, HDR (five files)

PaintShop Pro (2016), HDR (five photos)

Overall, I like the HDR capabilities with Affinity. The images seem clearer than with PSP or On1. But I like the way that Luminar AI can make a photo pop, and the templates can do some amazing things with little effort.

But I still really like the ease of use with PSP and I don't plan to stop using it any time soon. Perhaps, as I become more proficient with the newer apps—it took me years to feel confident with PSP and I still have lots to learn—I'll settle on a single program. Or, I might use one app to get to one look, and then use another app to apply different effects.

I just hope that my photos in 2021 will shine.

Happy Monday!

The Last Picture Show

My earliest memory of seeing a film in the theatre on Rideau Street, near the corner of Nelson Street, was a Walt Disney film, possibly Snowball Express, in the early 70s. My dad, on one of his visits, decided to treat my older sister, Holly, and me to an afternoon out. My kid sister, Jen, was too young to sit still in a dark room, filled with strangers, and so stayed home.

The theatre, then named the Nelson, was not the furthest from my neighbourhood of Parkwood Hills but it was an effort to get out to by city bus. But when I was in my teens, my friends and I would head to that part of town on weekends, to one of our favourite gaming stores, Fandom II, where we would buy new dice and books for Dungeons & Dragons. This store was on the upper level of the house that is now The Horn of Africa restaurant. Fandom II would later move a few blocks south, on Laurier Avenue East, but still near Nelson Street, before it moved to where it still exists, in Centretown.

But from time to time, my friends and I would head to the Nelson Theatre to catch the latest movie. In 1981, when Excalibur came out, we were too young to get in. The film was restricted to those 18 and older, and we were only 16 or 17. But that didn't prevent us from trying, anyway.

And we had already been successful earlier that day. Our friend, Andy, was 17 but looked 19, and had successfully acquired a case of Molson Brador from our local Brewers Retail. There were five of us on that rainy day: me, Andy, Donald, Dave, and Al. Dave was the one we worried about the most, as he was the most boisterous of our group and alcohol amplified his volume. We each drank a couple of bottles or so of the Brador and then placed the remaining bottles in a blue and red Adidas gym bag, as we clambered onto an OC Transpo bus and headed downtown.

Dave insisted that we open up some bottles of beer while we made our way on the bus, but Andy, who was in possession of the Adidas bag, remained firm. We were saving our beer to have with the movie, assuming we got in.

The bus let us off in Centretown but we had to make our way to Lowertown, and because it was raining we were soaked by the time we reached the line for the theatre. We still had our buzz from the beer we drank in Donald's basement but we were clear-headed enough to have a plan. Because Andy looked the oldest of our bunch, he was tasked with buying our tickets. But because I looked the youngest, I would be the first to try to get past the person at the theatre doors. If I was successful, it was highly likely that my friends wouldn't be questioned.

Either the person who took my ticket didn't care or he was distracted by the noise that Dave was making, he let me through without a second glance. Dave was held back, briefly, because he was loud and appeared intoxicated, but eventually got through, and we all found seats together in this packed house.

No one questioned the bag that Andy carried.

As soon as the house lights were dimmed and the trailer films began, Andy distributed bottles and we discretely downed them as quickly as we could. Though moderately pissed, I do remember the film clearly.

Dave, however, didn't get to see the whole film. He was sitting next to an aisle and the bag with beer was between him and Andy, who was the next person in from the aisle. As Dave tried to get his empty bottle into the bag, he missed the bag and his bottle hit the floor with a loud ring, and the bottle rolled down the slope toward the screen. Had he stayed quiet, he might have got away with it but he cursed and began rummaging through the bag for a new bottle.

The ushers were on him pretty quickly, and they grabbed Dave and the Adidas bag, and escorted him out of the theatre. I still remember hearing him scream for a refund but I doubted that he'd receive one. The rest of us denied that we knew Dave and Andy claimed he didn't know there was beer in the bag. I was the furthest away from the commotion and could focus on the movie while Andy and Donald promised that there would be no trouble through the rest of the show.

Dave was across the street, at the Harvey's hamburger joint, when we met up with him after the movie. He was soaking wet and reeked of beer. He had fallen with the bag and had broken a couple of bottles. We grabbed some food to go and headed back to our neighbourhood.

It was the last movie that I had seen at the Nelson Theatre.

Years later, the cinema would close, only to be reopened as the Bytowne Cinema. When I was in university, DW (who was my girlfriend at the time) and I bought memberships to this revival theatre when it was in New Edinburgh, on Beechwood Avenue. We would watch older movies and those that didn't have the wider, big box-office appeal but were fantastic all the same. When the Bytowne moved to where the Nelson had been, we continued to enjoy movie-going. The first time I saw a film at this venue, since Excalibur, was Paris is Burning. Being in this theatre in about a decade brought back that drunken afternoon.

I was stone-sober this time.

As time went on, DW and I stopped going to movies as often and stopped buying membership passes. But we still continued to visit the Bytowne from time to time.

The last film that we saw in this venerable old movie house was a couple of years ago, on Canada Day in 2017. As part of the 150th anniversary of this country, the Bytowne offered free admission. We watched the wonderful French film, Incendies.

In December, the theatre announced that it was suffering from reduced audiences, due to COVID-19. It had planned to close its doors today, but because of the province-wide shutdown, its final film, White Christmas, was shown on December 24.

That afternoon, I drove down to Lowertown to photograph the lit marquee for perhaps the last time. Like that day in 1981, it was raining all day. But as luck would have it (I always seemed to have luck around this theatre), the rain turned to a light drizzle as I captured the images.

I hope that this isn't the end for this building, that someone reopens it after the pandemic and the screen can once again give us movies.