Raymond Abril

As a child, I was always asking questions about the natural world around me. My back-yard was South Mountain, and I was free to roam and explore. My curiosity was not limited to natural phenomena, for I always wanted to know how things worked. How did the alarm clock work? I wanted to take it apart, however considering I was only 5 years old I did not want to be unable to put it back together.

My parents bought me several books filled with questions and answers, yet as encyclopedic as these were they only fueled my thirst for knowledge. If only there was Wikipedia in the 80’s…

The ice crystals in the upper atmosphere were always more interesting to me than “the man in the moon.” I’ve never seen the man, for even with a hyperactive imagination I had to strain to guess that the upper two darker mares were the eyes and the lower its mouth. I read a story about an artist showing his capabilities by drawing a perfect circle, and so circles have been fascinating to me.

I took this picture with the camera laying on the fence pointing upwards with a 30 second exposure. Even within 30 seconds, at full resolution the stars are a line from the rotation of the Earth.