This image was captured during a camping trip to beautiful Assateague Island. I had not planned to go out of the tent to take images on this night, but at around one in the morning the stars were shinning brightly through the mesh canvas on the roof of the tent and it energized me to go out and observe and photograph them. The milky way could be seen rising in the east and I enthusiastically walked around on the sand looking for compositions. The first image that I took was of a sand dune covered in shrubs with the arc of the milky way matching that of the dune. The second was of a group of bushes slightly isolated by paths of sand with the milky way rising up from behind the bushes, and the third was this one of a fence with the milky way forming a simple diagonal across the sky. This was my favorite composition and as soon as I took these images, I knew it could be very nice. The fence gives the image a sense of place in my opinion, as well as providing a nice compositional feature.
The final image was created by taking one 5 minute exposure of the land and blending that with seven 20 second exposures of the sky, which were stacked to reduce noise. Between finding the compositions, setting up the camera, and taking the images, I spent 3 wonderful hours walking on the sand with the stars and milky way providing mesmerizing views above. I hope you enjoy this photo which serves as a means to share a piece of that experience.