"This is a project I had in mind for quite a while. It’s mainly inspired by the illustration of Princess Tuvstarr (from a fairtytale) by artist John Bauer and my fascination for Swedish folklore. So what I had in mind from the planning stage is close to the actual outcome and I am very happy about that.
Firstly I started looking for a location. I took my car and went off straight into the huge beech woods about 35 minutes journey from my home. My family had a small house there once which we would sometimes visit when I was younger so I am quite familiar with the area. These woods contain a few lakes which was what I was looking for. I stopped at the four lakes I found and left my car and brought my camera with me and started walking all the way around the lakes to find the best spot possible. Finally after hours and hours of looking I found it. I admit I wish I would find an even better location but it was surely good enough.
I visited again another day in the evening and brought a friend to test out a few angles in the fantastic evening light at sunset. I reviewed it at home and thought it looked fine. The look I was going for required me to step out a few meters into the water to get my desired shots. It was fine though, the water only reached my thighs. The only thing that worried me was the risk of dropping the camera. But thankfully I did not.
Next step was finding a long haired, blonde model. I wrote a message in a few photography groups on facebook, describing my idea and what kind of model I was looking for, and after a while I got in touch with model Le Siss (link to her facebook page can be found below this post). We spoke a bit about possible clothing. What I had in mind was a simple white dress and she happened to own one that suited my vision perfectly. After a while we drove out to the location and had a great shoot. She was very easy to work with and everything went smoothly. I reviewed the pictures at home and picked a few in different angles and poses that I liked. The one featured in this post was obviously my favorite. I edited it for a few hours and got rid of some annoying elements like particularly white trees and such and adjusted the colors into a blue/greenish tone to add a mysterious feel to it and get away from the golden more romantic kind of mood.
I am very pleased about the result and want to thank my model and all the people who showed me appreciation for my work. It really puts a smile on my face and gets me even more motivated to continue doing what I love."- Valdemar Hemlin
EXIF:
Focal length: 50mm
Aperture: F/2.8
Shutter: 1/160
ISO: 200