Finalist - Travel Photographer of the Year.
December 2018

Natural World Portfolio Category.

Full of promise and symbolising new beginnings, optimism, peace and purity, this beautiful lily will never reach the surface. It is paradoxically destined to bloom and die underwater.

One of the challenges I encountered photographing these aquatic plants was the lighting. The flowers are so brilliantly luminous that they bounce and reflect light into the surrounding space. So for this image, the tiniest hint of ambient light from a gap in the leaf pads was enough to show the detail in the petals.

Location: Bosherston Lakes, Pembrokeshire, Wales, UK

Photographer: Laura Storm