The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
I am a mushroom lover and so this year was a bit of a disappointment at first because it was very dry at the end of the summer. Normally I start seeing mushrooms fruiting at the end of July through the first frost, but this year zip until the end of August. September had some rain so there were a few interesting specimens that came up after that. One of the most striking and photogenic is Fly Agaric - the American version is called Amanita muscaria guessowii, and while not as deadly as its cousins the Destroying Angels, will make you pretty sick.
Here’s a look at a few specimens I found on two separate days. There were tons more fruiting all over when I was hiking, but so many were gone past their pretty stage or were in tangled undergrowth, that I didn’t shoot them. These though struck me and I like the series they present.
Mushrooms are so changeable and can look completely different from each other even if they are the same species. It’s uncanny and part of what makes working with them so interesting - you just never know what you’ll get even if you visit the same spot year after year.
Specific Feedback
All of these are stacks in Zerene so if you see any glitches there, let me know.
Technical Details
All tripod shots. All stacks in Zerene. Pretty much all processing done in Lr for basic tonality adjustments and white balance. Some distraction removal and blurring done in Ps. All natural light for these and done with the Lumix G9 and Leica 45mm f/2.8 macro lens.
You are the mushroom lady, Kris. I never knew there was so many different mushrooms. We rarely see them here in NC, at least where I live. When we have had a lot of rain, we get some in our yard, but they don’t seem to be photogenic like the ones you present. They are all very good. I think I like the first one the best but also love the last one very much too, with it picking up the yellows in the leaves. Well presented.
Thanks @Shirley_Freeman - there are more mushrooms and fungi that haven’t been discovered or named than have. It’s endless and the more we understand about genetics, the more things change in terms of taxonomy. It’s crazy fun finding and photographing them. I forgot to put this up for some scale for the first photo -
My camera is a full-sized mirrorless so you can see how big that amanita was. Oh and if you look at the stem and leaves in that first shot you’ll see a bunch of black dots. I believe those are springtails (aka snow fleas) which are not really fleas nor are they insects - they’re arthropods and have their own subphylum called hexopoda. They moved around a lot and it was funny to see the different positions in the individual photos for the stack.
Thank you for sharing your setup. Yes, the mushroom is much bigger than I realized. It sounds like you have educated yourself nicely with the subject of mushrooms. You even knew what those black dots were, whereas I probably wouldn’t even have noticed them.
Very cool, Kris. All the shots look excellent and I didnt’ notice any stacking artifacts. It’s interesting that I usually see this species in the spring out here, but we have such a different climate with our mild winters. We finally got rain and many of our mushroom species are starting to pop out. I need to get out and photograph more of them.
P.S. One of the people in our camera club is lighting them from from the opposite side (I think) and getting some really neat glowing effects.
Gorgeous portraits, all!! I love the first one for the yellow-to-orange color variation. The third one looks much more yellow – is there this much color variation in them, or is it just WB and forest light variation? As far as I know (which isn’t much) we only have the red ones out here and they are scarce.
Thanks @Shirley_Freeman, @Dennis_Plank & @Dennis_Plank - it was definitely an impressive specimen. I’ve tried a bit of funky lighting with them, but not much. Mostly because I forget that I can.
There is some color variation in these, Diane, which you can see with the pale yellow one. Some are only that color briefly and others stay that way. I don’t know why, but it’s part of what is so fascinating and frustrating about trying for an ID. Sometimes 8 books and the internet aren’t enough. I wish we had the red ones here. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one IRL.
