Onegav

After last nights giant, epic sunset (The Sunset Kid), and with missing the fungi thanks to the slugs getting to them first a couple of days ago (Entropy), I wanted to focus on something small tonight, and decided I’d try and find some mushrooms or fungi to photograph.

Izzy’s tea was ready, but she still wanted to come with me, she always does bless her. I wasn’t going far, only to the woods opposite our house, so we wouldn’t be long.

When we got to our front gate, I let Izzy choose which way we would head, and she chose left, so we went left, and into the woods. We saw lots of things, conkers, squirrels, flowers, mosquitos and fallen trees.

I told Izzy the fallen trees would likely be where the mushrooms were hiding, so she kept a sharp lookout for them. We walked most of the way through the woodland, and though we saw some very small mushrooms, nothing was quite right to have a closer look at or take a photograph of.

So, I told Izzy we’d double back, and go deeper into a spot I noticed in the woodland, and take a closer look at one of the bigger fallen trees.

Sure enough, after we’d scrambled down the bank, the ground felt softer under foot, much more like mushroom territory! Then, at the base of the fallen tree I saw what we were looking for, a little nest of mushrooms.

Izzy was super excited, and we sat looking at them for a good 20 minutes. They’re interesting little things, moping up the decaying flora of the forest floor, and in the process creating something really pretty.

Izzy reached out to touch them at one point, so I warned her that these are not like the mushrooms she eats, these might make her poorly. She retrected her hand, undeterred from enjoying looking at them, and with even more wonder for the natural world written in her eyes.

Learnings – really nice contrast today, from the grand and super colourful sunset from yesterday. It was nice to find something “hidden”, and less obvious, yet something that Izzy and I both found equally as amazing.

I used my tripod today, with my 50mm due to the low light. I also exposure bracketed all the shots you see here. Not somehting I normally do for thse type of shots, but I think its worked well to add detail to the full range of the tones, and added an extra level of depth to the images. That, combined with the shallow depth of field, and the intimate scene, I think has created a really nice and little scene, and I’m pleased with the images.

Hope you have a great weekend!