makebright | making stuff in waterloo

Hoover & Wiebe are Compressed Company

Posted on December 6, 2014 by dw

My good friend David Hoover reached out last week to tell me about a small art show he and his collaborator Darryl Wiebe were putting together. Together they form the collective Compressed Company. That show is running tonight until 11pm down on Borden Ave. Brohemus and I stopped in this afternoon to have a look. Above is a fragment of a collaborative piece. And it was my immediate favourite.

The TL;DR: if you dig any of the work in this post, reach out to Dave and Darryl at compressedcompany@gmail.com and stay tuned for some very cool upcoming projects from these guys.

A completely reasonable number of pics follow…

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Posted in art | Tagged Kitchener, street art | 1 Comment

Kessler and Chen telling it long-form

Posted on December 3, 2014 by dw

I hit the City of Waterloo Museum for the first time yesterday to see a show very close to my maker/photographer/storyteller heart. My friends Sunshine Chen and Karl Kessler started capturing local stories of disappearing trades and the makers that work them in 2008 to form a body of fifty vignettes. The show is called OVERTIME and features only a fraction of these very important captures. Excellent photography, excellent story, great presentation. This show runs through the end of January. Go see it.

A few pics…

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Posted in photography | Tagged Kitchener, photography, storytelling | Comments Off

DIY laptop sleeve

Posted on December 3, 2014 by dw

Yes friends, there’s still a lot of “make” in makebright.

As I’ve become more nomadic pursuing makebright full-time as a business, I end up hauling a bunch of my gear around on a daily basis. To maintain a reasonably-sized camera bag, I’ve had to naked-carry my laptop. I can jam the power supply, mouse, etc. into the bag, but the laptop has been in hand since August. This worked more or less until the fall rain and late fall sleet/snow. I wanted a minimal laptop sleeve that was water-resistant and not-black, so I decided to make one…

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Posted in making | Tagged DIY, sewing | 1 Comment

OWN IT magazine for DTK

Posted on December 2, 2014 by dw

Last Wednesday saw the launch of the Kitchener BIA magazine OWN IT. I was fortunate to be one of four photographers working on this project and I’m very proud of how it turned out. Once again, Kitchener pushes the Region forward by putting together this project that highlights stories about the community, by the community, for the Downtown Kitchener community. Five thousand of these magazines, printed locally at Cober, were sent out to postal codes in the downtown area last Friday. Check out the online version.

I love working with Kitchener because they have a vision and assemble a great crew to execute that vision. High fives to the other photogs Dean Landry, Matt Smith, and Dawne Taylor-Gilders. Great layout and concepts by designers Cindy Perri and Teri Lynn O’Brien, writing by the ever-awesome Anna Beard, and wrangling by Kitchener champs Breanna Crossman and Cory Bluhm. Thanks to the many other who made it possible and especially to the BIA members who support the work and make DTK awesome.

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Posted in community | Tagged Kitchener | Comments Off

UTW and the elusive student demographic

Posted on December 2, 2014 by dw

“Will you take our picture?”

Me: sure.

Last Thursday after a great AbeErb meetup with Mark Connolly and absent a long-shift working Brohemus, I spent Brother Night roaming Uptown Waterloo. In a snow storm. With busloads of t-shirt-clad students. In my cultural travels, a persistent mystery is how to engage the tens of thousands of local students in Waterloo Region. So running into what I can only imagine was a massive pub crawl was a good example of something that had cracked that code. Not a big revelation; just a data point. And a few more pics…

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Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off

FLASH—making the photography event we want to see

Posted on December 1, 2014 by dw

[Update 2014-12-02 : open call now includes both professionals and amateurs.]

After months of my obscure references here to a photography event here in Waterloo Region, I’m happy to take the wraps off the FLASH photography happening, coming January 23, 2015. This gig is going to kick ass, so before you read any further go get your tickets before they sell out.

The TL;DR:
• headliner is two-time Pulitzer Prize winning photog Barbara Davidson
• three featured photogs will be showing work
• open call to ~~amateur~~ photogs to submit their best shot to the curators panel for the show
• all content creators showing work get paid CARFAC rates
• please, push the flashwr.ca link to your friends on all channels and then show up

Above are the people I’ve been hanging out with to work on this show. L-to-R: Me (DW), Tony Reinhart (Communitech), George Tsintzouras, Charles Fraresso (Christie), Gordon Hatt (CAFKA), Catherine Bischoff, Mark Walton (Foto:RE).

There’s a lot of well-articulated thought on the FLASH site, but let me say it simply here: I feel like we’re making the photography event we ourselves want to see. Top-notch talent and content, on killer projection tech from Christie, in a great venue at The Tannery, conceived and supported by a mash-up of different groups. Made right here in Waterloo Region.

A few meta-pics…

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Posted in event, photography | Tagged FLASH, Kitchener, photography | 2 Comments

Hub Haps #011-broadcasting from the future

Posted on November 28, 2014 by dw

Sam on the cam. Today around the Hub, Communitech PR ninja Samantha Clark was working with…

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Posted in community | Tagged Communitech, HubHaps, Kitchener | Comments Off

Altekrea puts the alternate in DTK

Posted on November 23, 2014 by dw

Alright WR, get to this show at Kitchener City Hall today (Sunday!) and buy some cool alternate creations. My peeps and I hit Altekrea yesterday and you definitely don’t want to miss it. Such cool things as creator Laura Renwick’s great horned beast are just waiting to go home with you.

A few more pics…

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Posted in event | Tagged art, Kitchener | 2 Comments

1shot #203-Kitchener sets sail

Posted on November 21, 2014 by dw

I was mesmerized by the sail-like flags in front of city hall.

From King Street on a windy day, this is Kitchener.

Posted in photography | Tagged 1shot, flag, King Street, Kitchener | Comments Off

Hub Haps #010-next gen Daleks?

Posted on November 19, 2014 by dw

For all you Doctor Who fans, these are not in fact Daleks. They are old light fixtures being replaced with more energy efficient LED panels throughout the Communitech Hub. And you’d better believe I asked the contractor if they were going to scrap or recycling, hoping to take home a new centre piece for the kitchen table. Alas, these babies are being turned over to lamp recycler Aevitas in exchange for enviro certificates that presumably support the upgrade financially. Nevertheless, the photographer in me is happy that the new LED panels offer up warm light in the 3600-4100K range. Makes for better photos than panels tending toward the 5000K-range blues, and worth the 6% trade-off in lumens.

ELEVATE!

Posted in community | Tagged Communitech, HubHaps | Comments Off