M.A.S.H

Saturday 16 March 2013

Goodbye! M.A.S.H going into Archive

Hi Everyone

Gosh it's been a while since I visited this blog! I have really enjoyed blogging here and sharing my views, joys and inspirations. It's been a great platform for developing my style in both photography and blogging and has driven me to explore new music, art, style and hype about it!

With many new ventures I've unfortunately had no time to keep blogging here however you can view my new projects here where I will still be blogging about similar things but on a different blog:

My photography arts blog: http://nishasvest.blogspot.co.uk/

My website: http://nishahaq.blogspot.co.uk/

I'm also the creative director and main contributor to Lost & Found Mag blog where I have been spending a lot of time managing the blog and launching it. M.A.S.H blog has given me the experience to create Lost & Found's image and I hope for the publication to be launched A/W 2013. Please check out the blog here: http://www.lost-and-found-mag.com/

Many thanks for reading over the years. Can't believe I created my first post 6th July 2010! Feels like such a long time ago. And for people to still read this blog is amazing. Thank you for 89,965 page views! You certainly have given me the confidence.

So time for a goodbye to this blog... it's been great blogging! The blog will still be live on the internet but I will cease to blog anymore.

Thanks,
Nisha.

Friday 24 August 2012

Artist of the Week > Jessie Ware

Yikes its been ages since I've posted on this blog! Almost a year. Well one of my summer resolutions was to blog more so today I'm deciding to put that into action! I must admit I've been demotivated by posting onto this blog due to the adult content I've been forced to have (this isn't an 'adult' site) but I hope you wonderful readers won't be put off by it!

Album released 20th August 2012. Buy on Amazon

Anywhos onto the main business. Today was a slow day where the clouds overcast and rain drizzled throughout the afternoon; I was thinking of what to do especially as electricity was cut off for most of the day (mum working on sockets in the dining room) and thought I would pick up the dusty guitar and practice singing. I was stuck on what to sing and looked up Nina Nesbitt on Youtube (A wonderful acoustic indie singer-songwriter) and was directed to Jessie Ware, a 27 English singer-songwriter, under recommendations. There I clicked on her current single 'Wildest Moments'. A mellow slow paced radio-friendly song sung with indie soul, her tone is a delight to listen to. The video, directed by Kate Moross, is a simple yet a fitting music video for the song; simple song structure and repetitive choral lyrics yet ever so catching and I love the words and how they speak truth:

'Maybe in our wildest moments

We could be the greatest, we could be the greatest

Maybe in our wildest moments

We could be the worst of all'

I particularly love her acoustic rendition of this song featured on the deluxe edition of her début album 'Devotion'. Other favourites are 'Running' (the vocals and electric guitar are brilliant!) and 'Night Light'.

Further Links:

Jessie Ware Website

Jessie Ware Soundcloud

Jessie Ware Music Facebook

Jessie Ware Youtube

Jessie Ware Twitter

Monday 5 December 2011

Nisha Haq Photography > The Kiss 0.2

It's been a while since I did a post on my work. This piece of work is a GIF and I've only experimented with creating these only on a few occasions. Though they look rather simple there is quite a lot of work involved! I made 'The Kiss 0.2' for a short project at uni (BA Photography at Southampton Solent University) to do with time. I was thinking of a few ideas and thought I'd revisit a shoot I did this Jan. 'Kiss Me Kay' (Jan 2011) are stills from a video I made. I was experimenting with time lapse and the subtle differences in each frame in a kiss, a simple act with so many expressions. For my current time project I wanted to have a slightly different twist but fundamentally have the same basis for the idea. This time I shot outside against a fountain background which was also on a time loop for when the water would shoot out. I also used a tripod so all the shots can be level. Thinking about when to shoot and wait for the fountain all involved calculating correct timing and using a very fast shutter. I shot on continuous shoot mode and as it was outside I could shoot at a fast shutter at a low ISO so more detail.

To create the image I first resized all the images to 600 pixel width and saved the images again using Fastzone Photo Resizer software I downloaded for free from the internet. This meant I had low risk of Photoshop CS2 crashing due to uploading a lot large images. I then edited the first photo and saved the actions I did to it to apply the action to other photos easily. I added contrast, a few colour filters, soft Gaussian blur and used the sharpen image filter. I opened all the photos I wanted to use one by one and replayed my 'The Kiss' action 26 times. Now all my images were ready to use. I then created a Photoshop document to create my gif. This involved opening all the edited images and simple placing the images on top of each other. I opened the 'animation' window, the tool to use to create gifs. I then selected all the layers and chose the option 'Make frames from layers' from the small arrow on the right of the 'animation' window. I then selected all the frames and chose 0.2 second delay from each frame to the next. To save as a gif I selected 'Save for Web' and chose GIF format, not JPEG.

Here's the image I created: Tell me what you think? Being relatively new at creating GIFs I'm quite happy how it turned out.

Kiss Me Kay (January 2011)

M.A.S.H

Sunday 20 November 2011

Video of the Week > Shame Trailer 2

I've been a fan of Michael Fassbender since seeing him in 'The Devil's Whore' which was shown on Channel 4 in the UK in 2008. Since then he's been a rising star and I think it's safe to say he is hot property at the moment! He is currently a well sought out actor in Hollywood with the box office hits such as X-Men: First Class which was amazing, a beautiful retelling of Jane Eyre and 3 highly anticipated films coming out next year: Haywire, A Dangerous Method and Shame. The trailer for Shame really caught my eye which was directed by Steve McQueen. McQueen had directed the hard-hitting drama, Hunger featuring Fassbender 3 years ago which brought Fassbender into the limelight. The pair have teamed up again and Shame looks like an intriguing, mesmerizing drama. Fassbender plays Brandon who has a sexual addiction in New York but when his sister comes to stay everything is turned upside down. Though my very short synopsis of the film seems very shallow the trailer speaks for itself. From just looking at this short trailer it shows that McQueen is certainly a director to watch. My favourite part in the trailer is at 1.00 / 1.34 when Brandon (Fassbender) softly touches a woman's hand on a vertical rail on the NY subway. The mere touch has a sexual energy which I find fascinating.

The film is due to be released 13th Jan 2012 in the UK, rated 18. It also features Oscar nominated Carey Mulligan from An Education, another star in her own right.

Watch it here:

I also love the poster promoting the film. How the meaning of a word can change with the presence of a picture. Text placement and images are powerful tools in advertising. I particularly like how they've used an image of crinkled bed sheets with the simple noun, 'Shame' written in plain sans serif white font. I'm thinking it could be Helvetica however I think the subtext is, not the main title. If anyone knows please drop a comment below! Thanks!

Sources

IMDB: Shame

Youtube: FilmsActu

Shame Poster

M.A.S.H

Monday 14 November 2011

Photograph of the Day > Stunning Swarovski Shoot by Benjamin Lennox

My friend Kirsty had just bought the latest issue of Vogue with Gisele on the cover which came with a 'best places to party' guide. On the back of that cover I came across such a captivating image that I was searching the net for the shoot as I only had a glimpse of the image before we left for our train. I took a snapshot on my phone to remind myself to look it up! I think this image is pretty spectacular.

This was shot for Vogue Promotions, Vogue UK Dec 2011 by Benjamin Lennox. I had found these images on Kim Howells blog who was the stylist for this shoot. I think this shoot is beautiful especially the vibrant colours and the model's expression in my Photograph of the Day. I love the styling, fashion and how it's shot. There really isn't anything I can critique on! You certainly see the sparkle in Swarovski.

Source:

Kim Howells Blog