I had just gotten back to my place in Big Pine after my band's last show in Key West. I got out of the van and I looked at the time, the sky, cracked my neck, and as exhausted as I was; I knew it was the perfect night to capture a Big Pine Starscape. I tracked the future positions of the milky way for the night and calculated that it would peak between 1-3am. I took the band's van to my favorite spot and set up my gear. My tripod was in the water mounted up against some coral rock and mangrove, as was I.

It was very dark, hence why the stars popped so nicely. I was trying to use my light little as possible because the NoSeeUms were ruthlessly buzzing in my ears and chomping away at me. I can't tell you how many times I slapped myself in the face that night. I lit the foreground during the long exposure with a brief flash from my Galaxy S9+ and hoped it translated well on camera. I took a series of photos with different framing and didn't even have the composition you see in mind, It was originally supposed to be a vertical shot! While editing, I had the idea of stitching the multiple shots together to maybe get a full view of the milky way. I went through with my idea and soon realized that the milky way was dipping right into some light pollution from the next island southbound and I fell in love with the spontaneous composition! after 2 days and 3 revisions, this was the end result.