I must be a little like Halley’s Comet, though with a shorter 3-year period, in that I’m getting back around to some events that I haven’t shot in while. Close on the heels of last week’s Felt Lab revisit, was Tuesday night’s return to Ignite Waterloo #14. Well, it’s been far too long since I last shot IW#7 up at The Tannery.
The TL;DR on this one: Kitchener Market as a venue was great, most of the talks were strong, awesome meeting some new friends I only knew virtually, and catching up with old friends.
Above is Ines Markeljevic delivering a hilarious talk on The Junk Mail of Online Dating. Her parody photos of profile pics she had received from guys had me gut-laughing. Bravo.
And before I forget, if you want to get email notifications of new makebright posts, just roll on down to the bottom of this page, put in your email address, and hit Subscribe. You’ll get a confirmation email and you know the rest. I also push posts via twitter/facebook. Thanks to Jude Doble from Red leather booth for the suggestion. Read her stuff, too.
A totally unnecessary number of pics follow…
Market! It’s not just for daytime. This worked out really well. Lots of space, and early in the evening, lots of light from big windows. Photographers like light.
T-shirt. Who designed/printed this? Civilian? Cool.
Volunteer photog hanging around the beige green room.
More meta.
Organizers Dana, Karen, and Tiffany. Thank you.
When you see the big strobe, you’re probably looking at Sean Gilders’ rig. He and the rest of the snapd KW posse are everywhere shooting.
Lots o’ light. Straight lines of empty chairs always jack up my anticipation. In a good way.
The more events I shoot, the more I appreciate media crews.
Memory Tree has been running with Ignite Waterloo for a long time now.
Intervalometer. I shot this photo of the camera automagically shooting me.
This balloon guy blew my hair back. This is black belt level balloon art.
Snacks.
Check.
He has an interesting face.
Our MC for the night, Kevin Zimic. Also a principal with one of the sponsors, Ridgehill Ford, though he kept that mostly on the down-low… but I sort of guessed from the ZEEEEEE vanity plate he later hung around his neck.
Sean Gilders. Meta.
Business class, up front.
Market.
Hey, of course where there’s audio, there’s my friend Jonathan Fritz.
Mr. James Howe and Marie-Helene Brais. Vote this guy into Kitchener City Council’s ward 10 seat and watch him rock. James, you’ve got my virtual vote from up here in Waterloo in my pal Karen Scian’s ward. More on James here.
A sea of engaged people.
Merci beaucoup.
Pretty sharp shoes on Mr. Zimic.
Mrs. Zimic, front row.
Talks begin. For those new to Ignite, it’s 5 minutes, 20 slides, auto-advance. I’ve done a lot of speaking in my travels and I can tell you when I spoke at the first Ignite Waterloo it was the hardest speaking gig of my life, just due to timing. I must have practiced a hundred times.
Ines Markeljevic. Again, great talk. Love the mix of humour and social commentary.
Great shoes, too.
Here’s one of Ines’ parody pics from the online dating world. Ines on the right. “Buddy” on the left. Truth really is stranger than fiction.
Next up…
Cat Coode. Or is it? Yes, it’s funny because I remember Cat from working in the Java Apps group at BlackBerry ten years ago, but I don’t remember that hair. And I think Cat goes to my gym (never have my glasses on), but I don’t remember the sleeve tats.
Cat made some great points about managing your online footprint…
and the tats are actually removable sleeves, as is the hair.
Alter-Cat.
More-familiar-Cat.
Next…
I’m never sure about the working-on-a-charity talks, but I think Alison Fraser has a good thing going and I like the humility she applies to her work. Some good meta-thinking about how and why people get involved with this work. I especially liked the comment around helping anyone around the world, not just in your community, is a good thing since we’re all on the same ground.
Maximized vacation through agile methodology.
Shredding misconceptions…
Crystal Shadwell did a great job. Thumbs up.
Robert Linsley, who I don’t know (yet) was really striking a chord with me and my mission. Looked like some good ideas about rethinking WR’s engagement in the global arts world, moving from consumer to active producer and player. I want to hear more.
I honestly believe board games could solve a lot of the world’s problems. Human connection.
Daryl Andrews’ enthusiasm really shone through.
I’m looking up and buying this game: Dexterity. Looks like a more makerly Jenga-in-reverse.
Yes!
Drew Ripley described some mind-blowing balloon construction.
and takes my Best In Shoe Award.
Definitely check out the video for this talk to get a better sense of the scale of this project. Thousands of balloons. Phenomenal.
David McCammon, photographer sans camera, on the right. Still counts as meta.
kwartzlab pals, foreground right.
Won’t be needin’ these coats much longer, will we?
Serious faces.
Jonathan Fritz: check out this gear! Me: can it make you toast? JF: probably.
Hoping…
Rob Adlers will give a more in-depth version of this talk at a Nerd Nite KW. Charlotte, let’s get working on him. Rob and a team of music+tech makers wired a pipe organ from the 1800’s in a Toronto church, to make it more usable. “When have you been able to stand inside an instrument you’ve played?”
At this point, I’ll offer a photographer’s apology for shooting everyone with the available light, which ideally would be coming down from much higher up to give a better shadow under the chin. I kind of have to roll with the infrastructure as is on these gigs.
Talking about engineers productively straying from their discipline…
Andrew Persaud talked about…
his group Irrelephant Productions who are exploring, entertaining, and engaging with short films. Cross-discipline, very cool.
Approaching parenting challenges with a lot of humour and creativity…
makes for healthy kids. Jennifer Schooley shared her 8 year old’s genius method of making chocolate milk (syrup into the big milk carton) and other adventures.
Fastball.
Mike Brown.
Rebecca Sloan.
Gregg Young.
This talk was like watching a mini Wes Anderson movie (think Rushmore)…
starring Carson Kolberg. I dig nothing. Watch this guy.
My brain exploded in this talk, much like this egg-i-verse.
Travis Gerhardt did a great job of simplifying and communicating some really mind-bending stuff on the origins of the universe. Cosmic microwave background, gravity waves warping space, multiple universes. Mind. Blown.
Then a Pop-up Ignite announcement yelled by Steve Cross…
and then spoken, to tell us there’s some Pop-up Ignite happening in Cambridge on June 12. Tix on sale this Thursday.
Ignite delivers.
DW
Great coverage! (And thanks for the shoe award)
Nice to meet you in person – and thanks a mint for the super shout out.
Thanks for taking some great photos and sharing your experience. If your looking to purchase a copy of the dexterity game shown in my talk, the game is called, Riff Raff. The game is currently out of stock at my workplace (http://www.greatboardgames.ca/riff-raff.html) but you might be able to find it in stock at one of the other great KW board game retailers like: J&J’s, JustByChance, or CultOfTheNew.