I am such a nobody ~ Vincent Van Gogh
Software professional, photographer, painter, writer and ex‑podcaster based in Melbourne. All forms of art feel like expressions of thought to me, each medium offering a different way to carry emotions and ideas. I am ambidextrous in that sense, immersing myself in multiple creative pursuits.
Through my lens
Photography is not about what you see, it is about the way you see things.
Brushstrokes
Attempts to express my thoughts in the form of colours and shapes, using pencil, brush and paint.
Inkscapes
Where words take over — poems, blogs and short stories capturing the thoughts that don’t fit into a frame.
Work & tech
Technical leader and software engineer with 20+ years of experience designing enterprise platforms.
Other facts
Fragments from other chapters of my life, tucked away here for the curious to discover.
About me
“We lose ourselves in the things we love, We find ourselves there, too...”
~ Kristin Martz
I am Febin Joy, a software professional based in Melbourne, Australia, originally from Kerala. By day, I work in technology; outside of it, most of my energy goes into more personal pursuits—photography, drawing and painting, writing, riding, reading and spirituality, and the occasional poem or podcast episode.Over the years those interests have taken different shapes: landscape and street photographs, travelogues and short stories in both Malayalam and English, a Malayalam podcast called Weekly Musings, small sketches and canvases, and even self‑taught experiments in perfume‑making. Through all of it, family stays at the centre—a supportive partner, a tween daughter who keeps me grounded, and a quiet attempt to balance work, creativity and everyday life in a way that still feels honest. If you are curious to know more, you are welcome to wander through the different sections on this website to map out a little more of who I am.
Through my lens
Photography began as a way to keep creating when life got too busy for drawing and painting. It started in 2006 with a Fuji FinePix S6500fd prosumer camera and slowly turned into a habit that never really stopped. Over the years I moved through Nikon bodies from the D80 to the D7000 and D610, exploring landscapes, nature and just about every genre I could point a lens at.These days, most of my frames come from a Fuji X‑T30 III paired with a Fuji 13–33 mm OIS zoom, and an iPhone 15 Pro Max that’s always in my pocket. My focus has shifted toward streets, cityscapes and urban details, with a strong pull towards monochrome and the way light and shadow redraw familiar places.If you’d like to see more, head over to my Instagram for regular updates.A separate tools page goes into the cameras, lenses and workflow in more detail for the gear‑curious.
Brushstrokes
Pencils were my first escape route as a kid, sketching whatever caught my eye while the world outside moved a bit too fast. With a dad who could draw well despite being an engineer, it always felt like some of that love for lines and forms was quietly passed down—and I spent many afternoons trying to copy scenes from Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.From there, I wandered through oil pastels and stubborn oil paints that refused to dry in the Kerala monsoons, before finding a natural rhythm with acrylics and palette knives—the medium that still feels most like home.I have dabbled in watercolour and digital painting on an XP‑Pen tablet too, though most of the canvases now live back in India, and I only pick up the brushes these days when inspiration hits hard enough, so the few pieces you see here are just scattered fragments of that journey.
Inkscapes
Inkscapes is where all the hours I spent hiding in books finally found their way back out as words of my own.As a kid with asthma, games and sports were mostly something I watched from the side-lines, not something I joined in. The library became my playground instead. I grew up wandering between shelves, meeting Shakespeare’s kings and fools, Dickens’s streets and Mark Twain’s rivers, before discovering the worlds of Basheer, M. T. Vasudevan Nair and Mukundan in Malayalam. Those voices shaped how I looked at people, conversations and quiet moments long before I ever thought of “being a writer”.My first real attempt at putting thoughts out into the world was a small Rediff Iland blog back in 2006. It started simply—scraps of random reflection, photos I had taken, and scans of drawings and paintings. But that space did something important: it introduced me to strangers who felt oddly familiar, some of whom are still friends today, and it gently nudged me to read more carefully and write more honestly.When photography took me on the road more often, the words followed as travelogues. I began writing down not just where I went, but how places smelled, sounded and felt—the long bus rides, the small cafés, the late-night walks after everyone else had gone to sleep. Those pieces eventually grew into a small ebook of travel notes and photos, which you can download here.
Fiction arrived late. Apart from a few small experiments in those early blogging days, I never really thought of myself as a storyteller. During COVID, though, life shrank to a single apartment for about a year and a half, and the silence needed company. Out of that quiet came a handful of short stories—some in Malayalam, one in English—shaped from memory, imagination and the odd, lingering moods of that time.You can find the Malayalam stories, the English story, and my occasional blogs and poems here—little pockets of thought for when photographs and paintings aren’t quite enough.
Work & tech
Technical leader and software architect with 20+ years of experience designing secure, scalable enterprise platforms across cloud, hybrid, and on-prem environments. Currently leading technical architecture and cross-functional teams delivering mobility and compliance systems used by 300+ organisations across Australia and New Zealand.Proven track record of translating complex compliance frameworks (HIPAA, ISO 27001) into production-grade systems. Skilled in Azure cloud migration, secure software development, and risk-driven design. Focused on architecting resilient platforms that enhance public safety, operational efficiency, and long-term engineering excellence.Based in Melbourne, Australian citizen, and a clear communicator with a strategic mindset. Please find links to my technical blog, LinkedIn and GitHub below.
Other facts
This is where a few of my side stories live.Motorcycles have always felt less like machines and more like companions on the road, a love that started on the petrol tank of my dad’s old Bullet(Royal Enfield) and never really faded. These days the rides are rarer, but the pull is still there—I have spent days doing nothing but chasing curves and horizons on two wheels, the longest stretch being 421 kilometres in a single day, just for the joy of the journey.For a while, there was a Malayalam podcast I hosted called Weekly Musings—a small, personal space that went into hibernation when life became too crowded, but one that might return when there is more breathing room. You can still find it on most audio streaming platforms, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Audible and Google Podcasts.Perfume‑making is another quiet obsession. Every phase of my life has had its own signature scent, and it still amazes me how a single smell can instantly pull you back into a specific memory. I started by testing the waters with a small pack of essential oils, and what began as a self‑taught experiment, guided largely by YouTube, has become a way of mapping life through scent. These days I make my own roll‑on and solid perfumes, and even blend my own car freshener.Outside of work and hobbies, life is anchored by a happy marriage and a tween daughter, plus small daily rituals like short meditation sessions and an ongoing fascination with Stoic philosophy. Over the years there have been a few creative detours too, like writing lyrics for an English song. On the writing front, a few long‑term projects are simmering: more short stories in English, with the hope of a collection one day, a novel expanding on a Malayalam short story, and a non‑fiction book exploring self‑love.
Contact me
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