Peter & Moa

One day in the Dolomites

Last summer Fujifilm Nordic phoned while I was at the cabin, mowing the lawn with three kids hanging off me. They had a camera that did not officially exist yet and they wanted a film made with it by October. I said yes anyway, then started wondering how.

I messaged Marq Riley about shooting a film in the Dolomites. He was in, and so were Peter and Moa.

Peter has known my wife since they were kids in Söderhamn. That kind of history is useful on a shoot. Nobody performs for an old friend of the family. The plan was one full day in the Dolomites, moonlight to last light, to see how much a single day there can hold.

The moon did the first shift

We started walking in the dark under a full moon with not a cloud near it. The Cadini di Misurina spires were backlit like stage scenery. By the time the sun reached us at Tre Cime di Lavaredo, Moa’s dress was catching first light and we had the place to ourselves.

If you are planning a Dolomites elopement, start before dawn. The trails are empty, the light is at its best, and for an hour the most dramatic mountains in Europe belong to you.

Horses at breakfast

Wild horses found us on the plateau. Nobody had arranged them; they walked into the photographs and stayed.

An hour later we were at a rifugio with espresso, the Italian flag in the window and the peaks stacked up behind it. The Dolomites put those two things twenty minutes apart. You stand under rock walls that make you feel very small, then someone hands you coffee at a wooden table.

Over the pass

The afternoon carried us to Passo Giau. A shepherd walked his flock straight through our portraits, so we photographed the sheep too. Then the long gold light came, and Peter and Moa walked the ridge while Marq flew the last of his batteries.

That was one day: moonlight, sunrise at Tre Cime, wild horses, a lake, espresso at a rifugio, a shepherd with his flock and a sunset at Passo Giau. A wedding, an elopement or a session here gets the same treatment. Start early, keep moving, and the mountains do the rest.

The film

The camera was the X-T5, out of its box for the first time that morning. The film below is what we made for Fujifilm, shot by Marq Riley. The camera side of the story is over on Fujifilm’s X Stories if you like that sort of thing.

More from the Dolomites

These mountains keep pulling me back. If the Dolomites are on your list for a wedding, an elopement or a couples session, start with the Dolomites page, then have a look at Anna & Andrea’s elopement and Dawn & Rob’s day in the same mountains.