makebright | making stuff in waterloo

SVPWR 8×10 gig: talks moved and photos sold

Posted on November 7, 2013 by dw

“The Layers Held Our Story” by Brian Douglas

My good friend Jacqui Murphy, co-founder of Social Venture Partners – Waterloo Region, put an invite out to me to attend the SVPWR 8×10 event, which is a charity fund raiser for great social causes. In addition to some compelling talks about causes in need, there was a silent auction of photographs by local shooters. There’s a reasonable model of having photographers set a reserve bid on each piece, which they take home, and anything bid above that goes to SVPWR. The reserves were set generously low by photogs, in support of these really great organization. By the end of the night, all 23(?) pieces had sold. Triple win.

Photogs included:
Laura Twomey, Matt Smith, Kelsey Dawson, Allison Skye, Sara Fleiszig, Mark Essner, Andrew Wilding, Joe Martz, Dawne Taylor-Gilders, Brian Douglas, Raegan Little

Continue reading →

Posted in event | Tagged community, SVPWR, Waterloo Region | 5 Comments

All the beautiful Night\Shift Light Bikers

Posted on November 3, 2013 by dw

BOOM! The fearless fun-lovin’ riders of Night\Shift. This was the most fun shoot I’ve ever done. Thanks to you, rider, for engaging. Thanks to McPhail’s Cycle and Sport for the bikes and helmets. Thanks to Alternatives Journal for the opportunity. Thanks to Joe Martz, my co-photog pal.

Click through for an unreasonable number of photos from the “photo booth”. If your face appears in any given image, then you have my happy permission to do whatever you like with that particular photo. Roll down to the bottom of this post for instructions on grabbing the original much-higher-resolution version of your photo. If you post on twitter/facebook/whatever, I’m grateful for any links back to me on makebright / facebook / twitter. Thanks for playing. DW

Photos…

Derek Grady (sp?) totally killed it with this pass, surfin’ the light rails. Dude, hit me back so I can get your name right.

Click through for more, More, MORE photos…

Continue reading →

Posted in event | Tagged bicycle, community, Kitchener, nightshift | 5 Comments

Night\Shift bike-face photo booth rocked!

Posted on November 3, 2013 by dw

This was the most fun I have ever had shooting photos.

Alternatives Journal (thanks to nik harron) engaged me to do something for Night\Shift this past Saturday night that involved a bike-related photobooth to capture visitors’ “bike faces”. I came up with this TRON-like concept using 10mm LED lights duct-taped to the bikes, generously loaned by the ever-awesome McPhail’s Cycle and Sport. Shooting a slow shutter speed gave the light trails of the LEDs, and blinding the riders with a strobe as they pass through the frame froze their faces. My photog pal, Joe Martz, was on board to tag team this 5 hours shoot, and with the fun cranked up to 11, Joe came out early for his shift and I never left until the end. We both shot each rider with our own strobes, which is why you’re seeing double in the capture above.

The best aspect of this whole project was talking with the people of our fair region, who were almost universally game for this unusual setup and jumped on a bike. Pure fun. This experience is really making me think about what I generally shoot. I want to start photographing people like this, where I get a personal, if brief, connection with them.

For those of you looking for your pic, they are uploading right now (04:23 Sunday morning). I’m putting up high-res photos. So it’s going to take a while. You’ll find them here on makebright later in the day.

Thanks again for playing.

Posted in event | Tagged bicycle, community, Kitchener, nightshift | 3 Comments

David G. White at Café Pyrus

Posted on October 30, 2013 by dw

Update 2013-11-02 06:36: just learned Dave’s paintings are being moved out of Café Pyrus to keep them safe from a dance party there on Saturday night for Night\Shift. You can’t make this stuff up. Consequently, if he is there it will be for dancing, and possibly discussing his work, but without the paintings, apologies. DW

My brohemus, the ever-lovin’ David G. White, is going to be hanging out at Café Pyrus on Saturday night at 11pm during Night\Shift so get over there and ask him all the questions about his paintings that are hanging there, in a show curated by David Atkinson. You’ll know Dave by this picture at right.

Dave also has work hanging in the Dreamscapes show over at WalterFedy on Queen until Dec 18, which means the studio is nearly empty, which means more painting is in progress.

Connect with Dave here.

Posted in event | Tagged art, Dave White, nighshift | Comments Off

Coming Saturday: SoOnCon & Night\Shift! Get there!

Posted on October 29, 2013 by dw

Two great events you *definitely* need to know about and coming up real quick on Saturday:

1. Night\Shift – Saturday, Nov 2, 2013 – 9pm to 3am (yes, 3am) – a nuit blanche-style stay-up-late festival of art, culture, and other interesting stuff. Free-no-pay. Fellow photog, Joe Martz, and I will be running a show-us-your-bike-face “photobooth” at Queen and Otto across from Centre in the Square. You ride the LED bikes I cooked up, we shoot your photo, you become famous. Test shot of Joe, in the snow, above. If it’s cold, that only serves to enhance your bike face, so don’t be shy.

2. SoOnCon – Saturday, Nov 2, 2013 – 9am to 5pm – now in year 5(!), this conference of Southern Ontario Makers and Hackerspaces features lots of great people, great talks, and great workshops. I’ll be giving a talk at 10:45 in Classroom 3 on hacking your camera with CHDK (Canon Hacker Development Kit). **no camera required!** I’ll speedtalk you through buying these cheap used cameras on kijiji, to setting up CHDK which is alternative software for Canon PowerShot cameras, and then show how I’ve used these cameras in projects like my DISCONNECT show. You gotta register to attend SoOnCon: do that here. Only $40 and you get a cool, hackable, blinky badge, which at the later Night\Shift event will make you stand out like the maker you are.

You’ll be kicking yourself if you don’t go to these events and are looking at my post-event pics on Monday, drinking your coffee, and saying, “Oh, I shoulda…”

Click through for more Light Bike test pics, because, damn, that’s fun…

Continue reading →

Posted in event | Tagged hack, Kitchener, kwartzlab, LED, nighshift, sooncon | Comments Off

1shot #149-permanent record

Posted on October 28, 2013 by dw

Sidewalk on Ontario St at Duke, Kitchener

Posted in photography | Tagged 1shot, Kitchener, leaves, rain, sidewalk | Comments Off

The local make-o-sphere broadens–Hacky Halloween

Posted on October 28, 2013 by dw

Having spent a good chunk of the afternoon over at DIYDAY on Saturday, I had to haul ass down to THEMUSEUM to just catch the tail end of Hacky Halloween 2013. Delightfully, this event has expanded beyond its creators, the ever-makin’ kwartzlab, and included Hackademy, Brick Works Academy, Maker Club.

When we dreamt up kwartzlab back in 2009, a question we occasionally got was “What happens if a bunch of other maker spaces pop up?” Our answer: “AWESOME! That’s the idea! More!” Four years later, there are more, and happily, there are more efforts focussed on engaging and supporting *kids* in making. If ever there was a noble cause and a smart investment in the future, it is shoring up and extending kids’ natural maker instincts.

Continue reading →

Posted in event | Tagged Halloween, Kitchener, kwartzlab, THEMUSEUM | Comments Off

DIYDAY ripped it up at Chainsaw

Posted on October 27, 2013 by dw

DIYDAY kicked ass yesterday, and I hope more events like this are on the way. Instantiated by Marc Lecompte and billed as a “mixed-media event showcasing the hard-working folks putting forth an effort to make the culture of our city as vibrant as possible”, it certainly delivered. Marc, who owns and operates the Princess Café and Espresso Bar as well as Cheeses Murphy, is someone I’ve not yet met, but based on this meetup, I sure want to (facebook tells me we have common friends like Jon Johnson, Hilary Abel and Matthew Reynolds). I met Jon, of Bearface Design fame, a couple years ago at a printing press party at Matthew’s garage, and have just been going to a lot of the same gigs since then.

In addition to wanting to pick up some BFRC merch, I saw that Branko Vranic was going and I definitely wanted to get some of his prints. Been kicking myself for not buying out this entire stock at the show Chérie Fawcett put together at the Silicon W Gallery last year. Branko’s work shown above. I bought the middle one.

Click through for a semi-reasonable number of pics…

Continue reading →

Posted in event | Tagged art, music, waterloo | 8 Comments

Dreamscapes at WalterFedy

Posted on October 26, 2013 by dw

Single Cubic Unit (Green), 2013 – Stephen Lavigne

My brother from the very same mother, David G. White, is showing his paintings at WalterFedy and Friday night was the opening reception of the show Dreamscapes, curated by Chérie Fawcett. This is a strong show with very accessibly-priced work. It runs through December 18.

This piece (above) by Stephen Lavigne made me do a double-take. I was two feet away from it, lovin’ it, thought it was a painting, and when I turned away my brother said it’s constructed of precisely cut green painter’s tape. Mind: blown.

Click through for more pics…

Continue reading →

Posted in event | Tagged art, Kitchener, WalterFedy | 6 Comments

1shot #148-play

Posted on October 25, 2013 by dw

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