Checking back on my first post on Felt Lab up in St Jacobs, it surprised me that it’s been three and a half years since my last visit. Wow. I caught word in my trawling twitter net of a Friday lunch-n-learn up at Felt, including a talk from diyode’s Simon Clark. He was driving an Arduino workshop there, and I’m always curious to see how newcomers engage this tech. Equally as interesting was to see the changes and opportunities at Felt…
Camping in the public square by the bell, chatting with Brohemus on Thursday night, I caught this dude pulling a catwalk all the way down the block and on to the next. Like a boss.
This is Waterloo.
DW
Found this great slide behind the old post office off Dupont on King. This is Waterloo.
DW
This is what engagement photos look like at kwartzlab.
Ok, ok, James and Agnes are not engaged AFAIK, but this hacked thermal imaging camera is a great example of the kind of awesome projects that surprise and delight visitors at Tuesday Open Night. This is a Fluke E4 Thermal Imaging Camera that James picked up online for a thousand bucks. Happily, this device has all the capability of the $6000 E8 model and is merely and purposefully crippled in firmware by the manufacturer to hit a different market segment. James applied a firmware patch created by some clever hackers, boosting resolution from 80×40 to 320×240. You can snap stills, overlay data from an integrated visible light camera, and see through walls with this rig. Now my only question is when is James going to show up to the 3rdThur monthly photo review with a thermal image.
It’s a great face.
DW
I wandered about in the very sunny St. Jacobs Market on Saturday, thinking about what to shoot, and I noticed lots of cameras and many of them were larger than phones. I only captured a dozen or so here. It got me thinking about the disposition of all these high resolution images. Mine go here, on makebright. That’s how I maintain a discipline to keep shooting. But what of all these others? Maybe they go to their own blogs. Maybe to facebook. Maybe dropbox’d to relatives. Maybe viewed once and forgotten. I often ask photographers what they do with their work. About half the time, the answer is: “nothing”.
Something even more interesting to muse about is the social reaction I often get when I shoot photographers shooting something else. Meta photography. It seems that photographers are unaccustomed to being photographed themselves, and it leads to a lot of strange looks in my direction. Now that is very interesting to me. Something worth exploring further.
After the photo review, Tony and I were walking up King Street. Waiting at the light at Bridgeport, Tony nudged me and said, “Shoot that.” So I did.
Young love on King Street is a surer sign of spring than robins on the lawn.
DW
I got together again with the Foto:RE folks for the second iteration of 3rdThur Photo REview on Thursday night. Fourteen showed up, more than doubling last month’s attendance; both validating the concept and posing new challenges. But that’s the whole approach, eh? Do it, learn, iterate and improve, GOTO 10. Met new people, learned things.
This shot above has a kind of Last Supper feel to it, and I suppose we are disciples of photography. L-R Karl Griffiths-Fulton, Joe Martz, Jen King, Matt Weiler, David McCammon, Bert Matzek, Mark Essner, and Shayne Noel. Serious faces; everyone looking to improve.
Shout out to Death Valley’s Little Brother for hosting us. Thanks a lot. Click through for more pics of people looking at pics.
But today I saw beautiful, impermanent lenses sparkling in the noon sun. This is the fence around the lot where ish & chips burned down on King St in uptown Waterloo. Water must have dripped down from the adjacent building and froze here. The light-bending ice was as delightful as the negative spaces punching through to the empty lot.
The fence has absurdly enclosed the flat, featureless, gravel lot for the past year and a half, however today it made possible something really quite stunning.
DW
Yep, it’s the 3rd Thursday again, and Jennifer King is running this Foto:RE gig at DVLB, 84 King Street N Waterloo, Thursday, April 17 at 7PM sharp. Beer, wine, whiskey, snacks, all for sale.
Like last time (though different venue this month to mix it up), you get 5 minutes to show and get honest and direct feedback on one (1) of your photos, and n*5 minutes to give feedback on the work of others. No lurking, all participating. Bring your work as a print, or on an iPad or laptop. We don’t have a fancy projector and screen (yet), so showing up with your image on a USB key… won’t work.
The idea, well… my idea of this recurring gig is to get better as a photog. Running open loop, without informed critical feedback leads to you unfairly hating all your work or unwisely loving all your work. So, for example, some feedback I would expect to get on the photo above that I shot in Waterloo Public Square might include:
Ok, see you on Thursday. You can ping me if you have questions.
DW
