He spent much of his life in the flooring business with Dick’s Carpet One, but now semi-retired, Ken Crawford acts as a business consultant for that industry in order to help support one of his life passions: Astral photography. Inspired by Star Trek as a young kid, his heart has always been in the stars.

Getting his first telescope in eighth grade, Crawford has been fascinated by astronomy ever since. In adult life his interests shifted to the incredibly complex art of astral photography, and today he serves as president of Advanced Imaging Conference, Inc. “We are the Academy Awards of professional and amateur astral photography,” he shares.

Crawford is not limited to his Camino observatory; he’s also a partner in an Australian observatory where he gets Southern Hemisphere astral images. “Light pollution is an ever-increasing problem for us. I am really lucky up here – I have a good-sized parcel, and my neighbors are supportive and keep their night lighting down; but finding truly dark skies is getting more and more difficult as time goes by,” he says. While Crawford may prefer the dark, his work is anything but dull. Observe his breathtaking images at imagingdeepsky.com.

For more about Ken Crawford, and other local happenings and information, be sure to pick up this month's copy of Style – El Dorado County Foothills edition. Click on the Get Your Copy link on this Web site for some of our newsstand locations; click on the Subscribe link on this Web site to become a regular subscriber, or to order a copy of this issue or one of our back issues, please email  [email protected], or call 916-988-9888.