Sup.
Varun Rajput
Varun’s the name, photography’s the game. Can you tell that introductions are not my strong suit? Anyways, if you read the little blurb on the home page trying to get you to see my work, you’d know that photography, to me at least, is a personal art form. It can be a tool to showcase your unique perspective of the world, bring awareness to issues that you care about in a way that words just can’t, or capture meaningful moments in your life and the lives of others. Given the personal nature of photography, it would probably be a good idea to tell you a bit about myself. Since I can’t write smooth transitions to save my life, I’ll be doing the rest of this “About Me” in an FAQ style. Saying that any of these questions are things that I’m frequently asked, however, would be very generous.
What do you do in life, is this your profession?
Well, to the one person (if I’m lucky) who actually thought I’m a professional photographer, thanks. I can already tell you’re pretty cool. Currently, I’m actually a doctoral student at the Georgia Institute of Technology studying Electrical Engineering with a focus in electromagnetics. I’m part of the Low Frequency (LF) Radio Group, and my specific research is in the application of LF radio waves towards ionospheric inference. If any of that sounded somewhat interesting to you (nerd), you can check out my research group’s website and learn more about what we do by clicking here.
Where are you from?
I’m Indian-American. No, not Native-American or Indigenous American (thanks, Columbus). Indian-American meaning both my parents are from India, but I was born and raised in the United States. I grew up in the San Francisco bay area, but spent four years in Phoenix, Arizona for my undergraduate degree, and am currently based in Atlanta, Georgia pursuing my PhD.
Is this your only hobby?
No, in fact, it is not! Although, it’s probably the one that I’m most invested in these days. Some of my other hobbies include reading, listening to music, origami, tinkering with electronics, learning different languages (the human kind, although I do like learning various programming languages too), and anything in the outdoors. I spent most of my childhood in the Boy Scouts of America; going hiking, camping, biking, and backpacking. While I don’t find the time to do those things very often anymore, my love and appreciation for nature has never gone away.
Why “Vroom’s Photos”?
Okay, this one definitely requires a bit of context. Growing up in America and speaking only English, the way I pronounced my name for most of my life was a bit different than it’s traditional pronunciation, since the ‘correct’ way to say it doesn’t fit into the English phonology very well. The way I pronounced it was something like “vuh - roon” or “ver - roon”, with a long “oo” sound in the second syllable. Another thing that you should know about me was that I was a huge band geek (surprise surprise) and played the trumpet for around 10 years, before the infamous college engineering work-life balance had something to say about having hobbies. Anywaysss, in my freshman year of high school, I joined the school marching band and it was tradition for each instrumental section leader to come up with a nickname for all the new members. I’m a relatively soft-spoken and reserved person, so when I told the trumpet section leader, a Caucasian individual, my name for the first time, he, and the rest of the section, much to their amusement heard me say “Vroom”, and dubbed me with the nickname “Vroomvroom” or “Vroom” for short, which has stuck with me pretty much ever since.