Photography
During undergrad, I took a black and white film photography course to balance out the heavy science/math load. I loved being in the darkroom to process and develop film or prints. In my daily life, it also made me pay more attention to light and contrast, things that stand out in black and white. My favorite film to use was infrared, which is hard to come by these days, and see the ‘backwards’ pictures that resulted. I haven’t been able to do film photography in a while (lack of necessary dark room and chemicals), but after moving to Alaska I caught the aurora photography bug and invested in a digital SLR. The aurora is fascinating to watch. What some people don’t realize is that the camera can see a lot more than our eyes can see, so a picture of the aurora tends to be much more vibrant than what we see just watching. However, every once and awhile the sky puts on a true spectacular show that looks even better than the pictures.