Injecting Art into a Serious World

I’ll preface this by stating that I am NOT a very artistically creative person. I’m trained musically, but any sort of other arts I’m actually pretty dull. I went to school for engineering and if you ever met me in person it shows. Folks around me are quite accustom to me rambling about topics in annoying depth, rattling off unintelligible technobabble. Working in Engineering has taught me the nasty habit of when someone asks me the time, I’ll build them the watch.

Recently, I’ve been getting into photography. I can’t draw worth a damn, but there’s enough gadgets and technology with modern cameras that it could at least act as an entryway. For those wondering I’m team Fujifilm. I’ve been having an absolute blast just going out to community gardens, or just walking around in open space taking photos of all that I see. We’re hitting a great point of the year where all the wild flowers start to bloom so previously brown and dead hillsides come alive with the color of Indian Paintbrush. Learning the interaction between ISO, Shutter Speed, Aperture, just HOW much lighting impacts the colors and dynamic range of photos. Starting with Auto mode before quickly switching to Manual to showcase what I’m trying to get out of each and every photo. It’s been a nice juxtaposition to my day job where each day feels like a grind of research, digging through statistics, identifying problems, making recommendations that fall on enthusiastically deaf ears. Sometimes it’s nice to slow down and try to make something, try to reach deep into the atrophied region of the brain responsible for creativity and trying to resuscitate it one mediocre photo at a time.

My hope for Potpourri Sandwich is to let some of these other areas of interest flourish, as well as document some of my and my friends journey learning new skills. For all the none of you reading this, hopefully you’ll continue to join us along the way.