From the photographer’s point of view, the mysterious appearance of fungus fruit bodies, mushrooms and toadstools each autumn is one of nature’s most fascinating seasonal events.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Fungi come in an amazing forms and colours – many are beautiful, some bizarre and curious and some quite revolting.
Most of them disappear as mysteriously as they come to await suitable conditions for their next fruiting.
The fungi of Australia form an enormous and phenomenally diverse group, occupying a huge range of freshwater, marine and terrestrial habitats, where plants produce and animals consume the fungi recycle.
In doing so they ensure the sustainability of the ecosystem.
The exact number of fungal species recorded in Australia is not known, but it is likely to be about 1300, so that means I still have a few to photograph,
My first trip to photograph fungi this year was to the Blue Mountains. The fungi in this part of NSW has always started a few weeks before other regions.
The conditions were perfect, temperature in the rainforest at night about 8 degrees and very wet after heavy rain (it continued in patches while I was there).
The colours in the forest were beautiful, especially on the trees as some nice light filtered through.
The fungi was out in large numbers, with a variety of colours.
Conditions were hard for moving around with steep inclines, heavy vegetation, and carrying tripods and other equipment made things hard going.
Special equipment such as a Bembo tripod to work at ground level was a must.
One must be well covered in those conditions, including long pants with waterproof covering.
All photographers have their own methods of photographing fungi, but depending on light we nearly always have long exposures.
As we are working with macro conditions it means a shallow depth of field.
I usually work on aperture priority, small aperture, flash shut down to about 16 power and I bracket my shot, sometimes using a back light to rim light the subject.
What happens is the small amount of flash goes off first with the exposure continuing depending on the light; the flash brings out the colours and the back light gives better separation and rim lighting.
Once all this is done one should expect to have few sore bones, but it is very exciting.