Tag: milwaukee

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Photo… Published!

If you pick up the April 2011 issue of Milwaukee Magazine, and flip to page 60, you’ll see one of my photos.

Neat!

It’s neat, but it’s also weird for me. You see, I interned at Milwaukee Magazine in 1993, and ended up working for QuadCreative (and while at QC I also did work for Milwaukee Magazine, in fact I’m pretty sure I built the first web sites for both organizations.)

So anyway, in the process of working at QuadCreative I met Cory Zimmermann, who is part of Z2 Marketing and Z2 Photo, and one of the big reasons I know what I do about photography.

To clarify, this isn’t some inside job… The person at Milwaukee Magazine had no idea who I was, and it was just a coincidence that I once worked there (I left in 2000) and just happened to stumble across the photo on Flickr and thought it would work for the article.

I don’t know if it’s becoming less cool to see your work in print now that (almost) everything is digital, but hey, I come from the publishing world (of paper!) and I still think it’s cool to see an actual printed magazine with one of my photos in it.

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Milwaukee Makerspace

Milwaukee Makerspace

I stopped by the Milwaukee Makerspace for a few hours last weekend, and I was pretty impressed with the progress they’ve been making.

If you’re not familiar with a Makerspace (also sometimes referred to as a Hackerspace) check out hackerspaces.org where you’ll learn that they are: community-operated physical places, where people can meet and work on their projects.

CNC Mill (In Progress)

At the Milwaukee Makerspace you’ll meet people who know how to build robots, hack Arduinos, weld, cut, drill and use every power tool/hand tool you can imagine. These guys have built electric cars, furniture, camera control systems, and even gained some recognition in the PowerWheel Racing series at the Detroit Maker Faire.

What was going on Saturday? Brant was working on building shelving space for projects, Matt was planning his guitar repair, Ron brought his keychain video camera (and I played with it a bit) and Royce repaired the access control system. There’s still much to do before the open house on April 9th, 2011.

Makerbot

So even though the Makerspace has drills and saws and tools and welders and electronics testing equipment, and they’re building a CNC mill, and repairing a laser cutter… you might wonder why you would really want to be a member… and the reason is: community.

The guys at the Makerspace are passionate about making things, but they want to do it around other people, not in their basement or garage, but in a space where collaboration takes center stage. And these guys are pretty smart, so if you’re trying to do something but don’t know how… chances are there’s a Milwaukee Makerspace member who knows how to do it, and can help you.

"If you can hack it, you can have it"

This might be my favorite photo of the Makerspace, and it’s a great motto: “If you can hack it, you can have it.” :)

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Ringy Dinghy

Ringy Dinghy

This is a photo of the “Ringy Dinghy” taken at Lake Michigan in Milwaukee, Wisconsin…

I started with a single RAW image and created 3 different exposures by processing the NEF file in Photoshop. Once I had the 3 files, I loaded them into Luminance HDR (aka ‘qtpfsgui’) which combined them into an HDR image, and I then tonemapped the image.

This part won’t mean much to you unless you are familiar with qtpfsgui (aka ‘Luminance HDR’) but these are the tonemap settings for this particular image. (I tend to use Mantiuk the most.) 

TMOSETTINGSVERSION=0.5
TMO=Mantiuk06
CONTRASTFACTOR=1.532
SATURATIONFACTOR=2
DETAILFACTOR=11.9
CONTRASTEQUALIZATION=NO
PREGAMMA=1

Once I created the tonemapped image, I saved that, and then combined it with the middle exposure shot in Photoshop, just slightly blending the layers. Then I saved that file as our final image.

This is pretty much the technique I described as HDR+ back in 2009, and the method I used for my Red Barn photo.

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Milwaukee Traffic at Night

Recorded near Alterra Foundry on 1st Street, this captures some of the sounds of traffic on an August night in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

You are free to use the file under the Creative Commons Attribution License. You can find it at Ourmedia.org or Archive.org, or download it directly.

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UberDork Café

UberDork Café
I recently posted about Kickstarter and Natali, who wants to start an “UberDork Café” in Milwaukee, and just came across an interview with her about her project over at Game Couch.

I’ve got a few views on this project… First, I’m behind it. Why? Because I love to see someone who is passionate about building community take action and make things happen. Will it work? I don’t know… but it’s great to see it take shape, and hope for the best possible outcome.

Popsicle Sticks 2.0 From another angle, I see this as related to things like BarCampMilwaukee, where we pull together people who aren’t afraid to call themselves geeks or nerds and do some pretty interesting things. One of my favorite BarCamp memories is the “Popsicle Sticks 2.0” session I lead at BarCampMilwaukee2, where it ended up being almost totally dominated by kids. I didn’t plan it that way (but then, what type of planning do I ever do for sessions besides facilitating them?) but it was great to see people comfortable bringing their kids to BarCamp, and providing a creative environment for them. (Bucketworks also provided paper, crayons, markers, and plenty of art supplies.)

Kids Draw in Circles! DrawCamp was a similar experience, where we created an environment where everyone who came (young, old, people who could draw well, people who could barely draw at all) seemed to genuinely enjoy themselves, and fit in just fine with people of similar interests.

A lot of Natali’s concerns seem to be based around wanting a place where she (and her kids) feel comfortable being themselves, and building a community of people who “get” who and what they are… and I applaud that.

Secretly (ok, not so secretly) I hope that there can be connections made between things like BarCamp, Bucketworks, and the UberDork Café.

I also admire Natali’s attitude. I grew up in the punk rock music scene, where if we had an idea, we executed it. If we didn’t know how to do something we figured it out, we tried it, and if we failed, we tried again… This is where I got my DIY ethics from, and they continue today it almost everything I do. We don’t wait around for someone else to do it, we do it. Is something stopping you from doing what you want to do? Find a way around the obstacle, find partners in crime… Don’t sit back and wait for others, stand up and make it happen, and get others to go along with you for the ride…

Stay excited, keep building communities, and share the stories… We could all use a bit more inspiration in our lives.