The twenty-something backpacker stands on the end of the jetty. The sand is giving his feet a nice exfoliation, the condensation coming off the beer bottle in his left hand is slowly turning his fingers into prunes, and a pair of dolphins exhale as they lazily meander past.

It’s a moonless night, yet as he looks up, his pupils aren’t fully dilated. He can’t see many constellations, but it’s not because of clouds - it’s a perfectly clear night.

He can’t see the constellations, because, well, other stars are getting in the way!

This was the sight before me in February of 2007. After three months washing the pots of the nouveau riche and semi-famous residents of Perth, Western Australia, I’d decided to shake things up and head north. The conversation with Anissa, the owner of the backpacker job agency, went something like this:

“Got a dishpig job in Monkey Mia?”

“What’s there?”

“Beach, dolphins, female backpackers”.

I mean, I’m no David Niven, but it seems she sized me pretty quickly.

So stood on the jetty I was, swimming in Bortle 1, 530 miles north of the most remote capital city on Earth, marveling at this crazy cosmic equivalent of not being able to see the wood for the trees.

At the time I was rocking a Canon Powershot A460., the stock entry level digital point and shoot at the time. And whilst CHDK was being created around this time, my internet access, and therefore exposure to knowledge, was flimsy at best. The notion of being able to do anything more than a 15 second 800 ISO exposure with my 100 quid bit of high-street kit was nothing more than a dream. So this photo is the best I thought I could do. It would take 18 years and a trip to the Canary Islands for that to change…

A night sky scattered with stars