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We love an image with a story, and we are so excited to share the making of this stunning image by Anne-Marie Caruso with you.

Titled Bioluminesence, this image was originally shot with a Graflex Speed Graphic on Kodak Portra color film, ISO 400.

Anne-Marie Caruso is an editorial photographer, located in New Jersey. Though she spends much of her time photographing portraits, still life, food, products, fashion & home interiors, she also enjoys focusing on shooting personal projects on 4×5 film. See more of her enchanting work here.

I had an image stuck in my head of a woman collecting glowing creatures to use as a light source in her home. I come up with these elaborate ideas, and then I have to figure out how to make them happen.

The first step to making my vision a reality was finding a location. Luckily, my brother has this gorgeous stream a short walk from his home.

The next task was to find the right lights to put in the stream. I bought different colors, and narrowed it down to a bright white that looked blueish green under the water. I then ordered a bunch of the waterproof solar powered lights, but half of them were broken when they arrived. After a couple of weeks back and forth, I had enough lights to fill the frame. I did some lighting tests around the blue hour to get a rough idea of how long of an exposure I would need. If memory serves, it was about 30 seconds.

I already had my model in mind – we’ve been friends since the 7th grade. She did an amazing job! Even though she was getting attacked by mosquitos, she held still for 30 seconds at a time. She is dressed in an old nightgown that belonged to my grandmother.

I used an Alien Bees 400ws with battery pack to light the left bank, and one with a beauty dish to light the model. An SB-800 is diffused in the basket and is lighting her face. A couple SB-800’s are used to light the foliage behind the model. I didn’t want it to be jet-black behind here. And of course, there are all the underwater lights. They came on strands like Christmas lights. I had to weigh them down with rocks and tent stakes, so the currents wouldn’t wash them away.

I used a long exposure to get the blue in the sky behind the trees (I liked the way it mimicked the lights in the water), as well as giving more of a soft and dreamy look to the water. The tripod was set up in the middle of the stream with heavy duty garbage bags to keep the legs dry. I wore pair of waders to keep my legs dry.

I set everything up early in the day, with the help of my husband (it took a few hours), and then we had to wait for the sun to go down. The actual shooting part only lasted about 10 minutes. I shot a few frames on film, and some with a digital camera (God forbid anything ever happened with the film).

I am very happy with the way it turned out – exactly how I pictured it in my head. It was a lot of planning, but I think it was worth it in the end.