Ash ZarifA personal field guide

Software engineer. Photographer. Curious person.

Ash Zarif

I build things, chase good light,
and follow what makes me curious.

A few things I've made. Some things I've noticed.
A place for the connections in between.

A little about me Surprise me
Sunlit coastal rocks beside breaking waves and a blue horizon.
OUTSIDE, LOOKING CLOSERA photograph by me ↗
A few recurring curiositiesPhotographyThings that moveMusic & late nightsQuestions worth following

01 / Follow a question

One photo. A whole rabbit hole.

A dense star field and dark dust clouds across the Milky Way.Photography → astronomy → software

A photograph that became a project

What am I actually
looking at?

I took a picture of the Milky Way. Then I wanted to know what all those points of light were. That question led into star catalogs, image matching, and a little sky explorer.

Follow the stars

Original photograph · Field note · Interactive Sky Map

02 / Away from the keyboard

There’s a lot to notice.

All photographs
A small yellow wildflower growing in coastal sand.

Small discoveries

Along the coast ↗
An extreme close-up of translucent pink flower petals.

A closer look

Color & texture ↗
A sandy path through low coastal plants beside the ocean.

The scenic route

Outside ↗

03 / From the notebook

Things I’m thinking about.

All field notes

The hours I like best

A perfect day at Stone Mountain, missing the Bay Area, and the Georgia mornings and twilight I have come to love.

Out in the world1 min read

Chasing film grain, following the light

My experiments with realistic film grain, Marigold V2 normals and albedo, and selective lighting beyond global sliders. Explore the film-editing side in Grainroom.

Things I made4 min read

The Moon, then Saturn

Two photographs of the night sky: the Moon’s textured surface and Saturn’s small ringed outline. A field note on what comes through in a picture.

Out in the world1 min read

04 / A little backstory

The interests changed.
The making stuck.

I started building software in high school. Since then, the projects have wandered through textbooks, photography, recipes, and everyday experiences on Android.

Outside the code: museums, something on the stove, a camera in hand, or music worth dancing to.

How I got here

Looking

Good light, small details, and the frame I almost walked past.

Listening

EDM, a reason to dance, and the occasional detour into how sound works.

Making

Software you can play with. Questions you can turn around in your hands.