Nymphaea alba candida

• English: White Waterlily
• Swedish: Nordnäckros
• Finnish: Pohjanlumme

If I really had to name my #1 favourite flower, it would probably be the white waterlily. It goes way back to my childhood – all those endless summers at my parents’ summer house. We have a shallow, mud bottom bay nearby and I remember we used to have a few white waterlilies there. Then every year they got fewer and fewer until finally none were left, only the yellow ones remained. That was… well, must be over 20 years ago. The fact is that not many white waterlilies appear on any of the lakes I normally visit when I’m in Finland. When we’ve found then, it has always been special.Then I moved to Sweden, and found white waterlilies growing in the small lake in the middle of Ljusdal. And I found them everywhere else, as well, I just couldn’t believe it! But this abundance doesn’t mean that they are easy to photograph. The problem is mostly that they grow in water – your options are either to use a big telephoto lens from the shore, wade in (if it’s not too deep and muddy) or take a boat (precarious at best). I have tried options #1 and #2, even if one of my best waterlily images was taken with a 100mm lens looking straight down, thanks to receding water levels in a lake. Then last summer I finally found white waterlily nirvana. A small forest lake tucked away just across the Voxnan river, with waterlilies growing right at the shore in perfect reach for my 300mm lens. So now when the waterlily season is at its best, I know exactly where to go!

Last summer when I was shooting waterlilies in a nearby lake semi-popular with the bathing crowd (that was just before I discovered my waterlily pond), a woman came by and we started chatting, with her being an occasional photographer as well. When I commented on the beauty of the white waterlies, she was not impressed. They are causing the lake to get overgrown, she said. But I could never blame the white waterlilies for that. If they turn lakes into marshland, fine by me – that’s how nature works. I will just admire it!

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Image specs: ISO 200, f6.3, 1/250, Canon 300mm f4L w/21mm ext. tube, Moose polarizer