my name is cameran ashraf - i am a 28 year old graduate student at cal state fullerton studying geography, and i tried to take my first astrophoto (star trails) when i was in 2nd grade. my passion for the sun and deep sky astronomy was rekindled in 2004 when my girlfriend kim and i picked up an issue of night sky magazine and tried to find saturn. we were running around in the middle of my neighborhood at 2 am in the street with the magazine and a clear night sky trying to locate the planet. it was such an amazing feeling when we found it!

months later i was purchasing my second telescope, a small 90mm maksutov-cassegrain. the person i was buying it from was including a solar filter. i took my first look and was hooked! i couldn't believe what i was seeing. i ran inside and asked if there was anything like a sun atlas (thinking in terms of the moon) and was told NO! the sun was active - it was always changing! i was stunned. my love affair with the sun began. it inspired me to try and take photos of it. from there i was inspired to photograph the night sky as well which i enjoy doing using film and my mom's pentax k1000 camera.

it is stunning to view the sun - it feels like something holy, something sacred. to this day i feel guilty when i look through the eyepiece at our star.

many ancient peoples believed the sun was a god. i often think of this as i do my solar photography - that i am photographing the face of god. i have tried to capture the majesty and tragedy of this most sacred of objects. yet i wonder why me? why not the billions of other people who live and have ever lived? why do only such a select few get to see the surface of a star?