Mohamed Hamad

WATS in Montreal?

mohamedhamad — Sun, 13 May 2012 16:05:07 +0000

For a while now, every time I wanted to find out what was going on in Montreal, where there is something always going on, I had to look in many places. Facebook invites, news papers, the website of every venue I know, and through word of mouth.

I thought there would be more sites which let you find shows in the city, but the where mainly all about promoted and large shows. I wanted to find the indie shows. The local live band, the dance shows and the improve comedy nights.

It was a pain, so I decided to build this site so I can find shows and performances around the city. The only thing is, I’m not one to be in the loop with everything thats going on, so I set out to build this site to be an open listing and community for all.

You can browse the listings of whats going on in town, but if you have a show, performance, vernissage or just about any event, you can login here with Facebook, and publish it so all can see.

My aim is to be able to promote the listings on this site on search engines and the general public so that you get as many people as you can to your events. And anyone who is interested in what your showing, can find it!

So, check out Where Are The Shows, and if you like what you see, sign up with Facebook, post your shows, and let everyone enjoy the fun that this city has to offer.

inlayers online dance project episode 6

mohamedhamad — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 12:00:23 +0000

The dancers take on more contact improv in episode 6, and Taryn asks them to chose a word that describes each person and what type of energy they bring to the work. Their task is then to pull out the opposite quality of each dancer, making for some pretty interesting work!

Video by Kaelen Ohm

Featuring:
Taryn Javier – Choreographer
Jenn Doan – Producer, Dancer
Melina Stinson – Dancer
Pamela Tzeng – Dancer
Simon Portigal – Dancer
Ralph Escamillan – Dancer

Picture an Arab Man by Tamara Abdul Hadi

mohamedhamad — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 21:24:54 +0000

I stumbled on this great project by Tamara Abdul Hadi, who is trying to break the image and stereotype of the post 9/11 arab man with a series of semi-nude portraits. She travelled around the Middle East and North Africa to get intimate and sensual shots of a variety of Arab men to bring a different perspective to a very distorted world vision of them.

She has so far taken photos of men in Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Dubai, Palestine and Canada, with all of them being from all parts of the Middle East and North Africa.

She aims to complete the project by getting a portrait of one from each country in the Middle East and North Africa.

“Picture an Arab Man” by Tamara Abdul Hadi

iPhoto for iOS First Impressions

mohamedhamad — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 22:16:27 +0000

When it comes to editing and managing my photos, I rely heavily on Apple’s Aperture photo editing app on the mac. I use it to edit my photos, but also to manage my increasingly growing photo library. By being able to star rate images, tag them with keywords and colours, assign names to faces recognized in them and geo-tag them on a map, I have one hell of a powerful tool to keep track of them all.

My iPad to me is also an indispensable tool. At first I bought it because I’m an Apple-Whore who loves their gadgets and it was a great way to get me away from my laptop all the time. But then I found it to be extremely fast, useful and part of my workflow. I use it with the camera connection kit on the go to import photos, preview them, delete the ones I don’t like, and when I get home, I connect it to my mac and import to Aperture.

iPhoto for iOS

So when iPhoto for iOS came out, I was very excited. I thought that would be one hell of a compliment to how I work. I have to say my expectations for it where in the wrong direction. I was hoping for something with the usefulness of Pixelsync, where I could do all the star rating and keyword assignments to photos, so when I sync, the work is done, and be able to make simple edits on the go, that would also sync when I get home. iPhoto for iOS failed on that front completely, but it is in alignment with what it is supposed to be.

The other iLife apps on iOS were built to be stand-alone apps that would sync to the cloud, or share on various web services. iMovie lets you create movies right on your iPhone and iPad, and Garageband too, and send them around quickly and easily. I think you can sync your projects with the Mac apps too but i can’t seem to see anything about that on the site. This is the same for iPhoto.

The app itself is pretty cute, and does a few things nicely, but others in a very gimmicky way. Its pretty amazing that you have advanced features like brushes to dodge and burn specific areas in an image (not available on iPhoto for mac), but the cutesy interface with the brushes popping up and fanning out takes some time to get used. And if your used to graphs and histograms to adjust brightness, contrast, shadows, highlights and saturation, you will have a bit of learning curve to get acquainted with the interface Apple picked for those adjustments.

The journals feature is very interesting, and its kinda cool to be able to create a photo album from your iPad and be able to share it online. Its quick, simple, easy though sometimes a bit awkward, but fun. And I think it something that from time to time, I will be using.

One thing I love is the ability to share or “Beam” a photo to another iOS device. That was always the most annoying thing about iOS is that to send anything to anyone, you would need to message or email it to them, even if they were next to you. This should really be part of iOS and not a feature in iPhoto. Beam a contact, photo, video clip or anything really!

I am impressed with the feature set it has, it is pretty on par with some of the better or best apps out there for photo editing, without some of the limitations, I’m looking at you Adobe Photoshop Touch and your 1600x1600px limit! I’m still playing around with it and getting used to it, and trying to figure out how it will fit in my workflow. How it will work with the iPad Camera Connection Kit, and how to get those modifications and edits in to my Aperture library and be able to continue with more serious enhancements to my shots.

With all that, I’m thinking maybe, iLife and Aperture will be updated in the summer with more iOS integration when Apple Mac OS X Mountain Lion comes out. I also hope that there is an new version of Aperture that works better with iOS or at least a version of Aperture for iOS.

inlayers online dance project episode 5

mohamedhamad — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 12:00:38 +0000

In episode 5, the dancers review the existing material then take part in their first contact improv as a group. They get to know each other on a deeper level and give their thoughts on the topic.

Video by Kaelen Ohm

Featuring:
Taryn Javier – Choreographer
Jenn Doan – Producer, Dancer
Natalie Poissant – Rehearsal Director
Melina Stinson – Dancer
Pamela Tzeng – Dancer
Simon Portigal – Dancer
Ralph Escamillan – Dancer

inlayers episode 4

mohamedhamad — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 03:51:01 +0000

In episode 4, Taryn got on the floor and moved through a personal improv while the dancers watched and moved with her. They picked moments that they connected with and started building their own solo piece from it. Taryn also gives some insight into her process and how she thinks as a Choreographer.

Video by Kaelen Ohm

inlayers episode 3

mohamedhamad — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 01:30:35 +0000

In episode 3 Taryn asked the dancers to bring an object or two that represents their story. With these objects they took part in an epic 45 minute improvisation that allowed them all to get in contact with each other, allowing them to know each other and their stories on a deeper level.

Video by Kaelen Ohm

inlayers episode 2

mohamedhamad — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 12:00:17 +0000

Episode 2 of the inlayers dance project pushes through in the rehearsals and has the dancers teach each other their solo piece.

Video by Kaelen Ohm

Featuring:
Taryn Javier – Choreographer
Jenn Doan – Producer, Dancer
Natalie Poissant – Rehearsal Director
Melina Stinson – Dancer
Pamela Tzeng – Dancer
Simon Portigal – Dancer
Ralph Escamillan – Dancer

inlayers episode 1

mohamedhamad — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 15:44:43 +0000

inlayers epsidose 1 introduces the team and the theme of the dance project, focusing on the central idea of “What Consumes You?”

Video by Kaelen Ohm

Featuring:
Taryn Javier – Choreographer
Jenn Doan – Producer, Dancer
Natalie Poissant – Rehearsal Director
Melina Stinson - Dancer
Pamela Tzeng – Dancer
Simon Portigal – Dancer
Ralph Escamillan – Dancer

inlayers dance video intro

mohamedhamad — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 04:51:49 +0000

The inlayers online dance project is something I’ve been working on with Producer Jenn Doan and Choreographer Taryn Javier.

The project aims to use social media to expose the artistic and creative process of a contemporary dance production, and open up the conversation to an online audience.

It’s an exciting project as it gives people a behind the sciences look at what goes on to create a dance show. From the creative process, the funding and promotion to the inner expression of the artists and how they go through about interpreting a concept

They just released the teaser video by Kaelen Ohm as an intro to the webisodes of the weekly rehearsals before the final show in Calgary.

Since the final show is in Calgary, I’m looking forward to the video webisodes, cos i won’t be able to watch the show live, since I’m in Montreal.