product photography

product photography, originally uploaded by umar.s.

I started a 2nd part-time* job on Monday as an in-house graphic designer for a dental supply company.
I spent much of today taking photos for their product catalogue.

*It's actually pretty much a full-time job now that I'll be leaving Staples.

38 Days

Kudos to Eleni, for putting together another awesome movie. It's a timelapsed video of our last photoshoot (with crazy antics in between). Do watch it!


Come see all these crazy designers at the show.

Seeing how this related to photography, I'll mention that I've landed my first wedding photography gig for later this month. I've ordered a studio lighting kit from Henry's which is now ready for pick-up.


On the same topic, I was contacted by Awakening.org and a volunteer for the group, Aashiq-al-Rasul. They saw my RIS photos on my Flickr stream and photoblog and asked to use the photos on their websites. Awakening wants to put them on nazeelazami.com and hamzarobertson.com.

Mark your calendars

York/Sheridan Design Gradshow



April 15-19, 2007
at The Fermenting Cellar
(in the Distillery District)
55 Mill Street, Building 58, Suite 200
Toronto

Come see what the heck we've been doing for the past four years.

just between us

The trailer for our Design Gradshow, Just Between Us is up. Check it out!
The complete site will go live in March.

Oh yeah...

I never got around to talking about the RGD's student seat on the Board of Directors.

A few weeks ago, we were asked to apply. I really wanted to get this position, since it would mean more involvement with the RGD. It also meant working with Owners, Creative Directors and Designers from some of the best design firms in Toronto.

Sadly, I wasn't selected... but luckily I was appointed to the advisory committee. It still lets me achieve what I wanted, so I'm happy.

This week will be the first meeting.

back to the old look

I've temporarily (or not) switched back to the old design. The new one was taking WAY too long to load (partly because it relies on getting the graphics from a third party website).

It'll stay like this until I can come up with a better solution (& design).

Kinetic Sculptures

Someone showcased this in class 2 weeks ago.
This guy makes giant sculptures that move by windpower. Pretty darn cool.

La`allakum tattaqun

Whether you're fasting today, tomorrow or Monday, make the most of Ramadhan.
Who knows if we'll be around to see it next year.



This is something I designed for Zum Zum Superstores. Thought I'd put it up here for other people to benefit from it as well. (Of course, it's only valid in the Toronto area... and as someone pointed out, the Asr timings are Hanafi). If you want a hard copy and live in the Toronto area, go down to the store where they have them. Their address is on the timetable.

yay or nay...

On this design?

updates

I've updated my photoblog. There aren't many noticeable changes on the main page besides the fact that images are much larger than before. Other changes include (finally) adding the archive and about pages as well as applying the same look and feel of the site to the comment pop-ups. Let me know if something doesn't look right or work properly and I'll fix it.

I'm also thinking of giving this blog (draftingtable) a major overhaul interms of appearance. I was looking at this site: Blogger Templates and liked "Curves in Blue" (pg 1) and "Make My Way" (pg 3). "Kiss" (pg 1) is also nice and really simple.

So what do you guys think? Feedback please...

My latest addition to the WWW

My photoblog: www.umarshahzad.com/focus/
It's still in it's very early stages... and the layout looks a bit crappy... but that will change in the next few days, when I have a bit more time on my hands (ie. after my exam on Thursday)

So check out the (1) picture I have up there (for now), and bookmark it!


And it appears that some images aren't working on my blog (header, profile pic, icons). This is apparently the result of switching hosting companies (to get my photoblog to work)... I just realized this right now... and I don't feel like doing anything about it at the moment. (Maybe tomorrow). I've had enough FTP and file transfers for today.

"Tomorrow" reminds me... I've got a consultation appointment with the tooth guy about getting my wisdom teeth pulled. I can feel the pain already.

argh!

I'm trying to set up a photoblog on my website (umarshahzad.com)
It's so annoyingly frustrating. I've been sitting here for the past 3 hours, and have made little to no progress.

I keep getting the same stupid error when I try to access a certain page. Time to hit the bed. I'll try again tomorrow... hopefully it's a problem on the server side which will be corrected by the hosting company.

Day 1 @ Shikatani

9:45pm right now and I'm dead tired.
Remember how the Creative Director asked me to bring my work in to show her today? Last night was spent frantically trying to get that in order. Designed, printed, bound all last night. (Another benefit of working at the Staples Copy Centre: Can go in anytime day or night and get my stuff printed.)
I didn't think it would take that long to get it done. Then it was 4:30 am. Went to bed, woke up at 6.
I hadn't exactly figured out which TTC route to follow and what buses etc to take... so when I got off Sherbourne, I couldn't find the right bus to get onto. I started walking and kept walking.... and walking... and walking. I walked all the way down from Bloor to Queen St all the while thinking it wasn't much farther. Then I just gave up and took a taxi.
15 minutes late. Not necessarily the best way to start the first day.
There wasn't a whole lot to do... one of the designers gave me a tour around the studio and introduced me to the staff and got me familiar with company computer procedures (file organization, applications etc). By 10am, I was sitting at my desk, reading the company profile binder... for the 3rd time.
So I went to see the photography specialist. He handed me the Nikon DSLR (think it was the D70) and told me to go practice taking shots with it in the photo studio room. Awesome. He gave me some advice about my plans for the Canon 30D... really nice guy.
After about 1, I still had nothing to do, so they gave me a project brief and asked me to come up with a few sketches... which I did for the next... 4 hours. Running on two hours of sleep, I had to keep myself from dozing off... especially since they had previous bad experience with a York/Sheridan intern who slept at his desk.
All in all, the first day was the way any first day usually is. It's such a cool place to be, and I'm looking forward to tomorrow (and the next three weeks).

woohoo!

I just got off the phone with the Creative Director at Shikatani Lacroix.
I'll be starting my internship there next Monday :D

Alhumdullilah. I'm really happy and a bit surprised. It's a top design firm in Toronto and she hasn't looked over my portfolio or met me in person. (Although she did ask me to bring it in on Monday). I knew volunteering at RGD would pay off. One of the staff there sent a recommendation for me to the owner of the firm.

Logo contest update

We won the contest :D

Apparently, there's a few changes to be made though.

*angelic choir sings in background*

www.umarshahzad.com

Not really anything up yet; only a static splash page. I'll be working on it over the next few weeks.
Everything on this blog should be back to normal. Let me know if it isn't.

Logo Contest

My sister had this contest going on at her school to come up with a new logo. With some encouragement, I got her to enter... promising I'd help.*
It'll be nice if it get's selected**, since I also went to the same school... and I'll sort of be giving something back.


* I ended up basically doing the whole thing, from concept to finish.
** There's a pretty good chance of being selected, since she tells me only 3 or 4 other students entered.

out with the old, in with the new

I'm getting rid of my mihrabstudios website. I mentioned getting rid of it before. For now, the link is still functional, so check it out here, if you already haven't.

So, for the next day or two, if anything on this blog doesn't appear the way it should, it's because of the above reason. I've linked a few things directly from my mihrabstudios server (like the "The Drafting Table" graphic up there^ and my profile pic on the side -->)... so give me some time to transfer it over to my new website/server.

I've been stuck on coming up with a unique website name for quite some time (as some of you may already now). Now, I've settled for umarshahzad.com ...unless someone can suggest anything better (which isn't already taken... as was the case with just about every name I could think of). I haven't registered the domain yet, so there's still time to get your suggestions in!

Visual Dhikr

Don't remember how I came across this (probably through someone else's blog), but wow.

Food for thought

Last night was pretty tiring. After getting home from Headstart at around 6pm, I had to head out to a client's place to pick up some stuff for a photo shoot.

It took me about 5 hours to get two dishes ready and photographed.
(The shots aren't that professional, but hey... I'm not a food stylist)
...then, after that, I had to get up early for work.*

(One of the 30+ pics I took)

*Although the rest of the day went well, it started off pretty crappy. I woke up at 8 (supposed to be there at 9)... found out that the new pair of pants I had were about 5 sizes too small..... and another pair in my closet was 5 sizes too big. (Ended up wearing dress pants from my suit which was more comfortable since it was only 1 size small)... then, got there 5 minutes late... and sort of messed up on this one large order b/c I didn't take the guy's name/info and didn't send it to the printer I was supposed to. All in all though, it was a good day.