A Fun time with fungis

I have always really like fungus and mushrooms.  When I was a Boy Scout and did a lot of hiking, tree fungi were one of the few things that I learned to identify (not that I remember anything besides Chicken of the Forest).  There is something about their colors and sudden appearance that attracts me.  I have often tried taking pictures but usually without much success.  Sure, once in a while something good will come out of my attempt but most of the time they end up blah.

A few weeks ago my wife and I were at the local botanical gardens and there was a photo show of mushrooms.  Again, only one or two really stood out as good photographs.  And there are some good photographers in that group.  As we talked about it we came up with a couple of reasons why it is so hard to get beautiful photographs of fungus.

First, while they can be striking, they are usually not the most attractive of subjects.  That immediately puts the photography in a tough situation.  You have to turn something kind of ugly, or real ugly in some cases, into something people would enjoy viewing.

Second, mushrooms usually grow in deep under stories where the light isn't good.  OK, where the light sucks.  And a lot of mushrooms don't stand out all that much from their surroundings.

And finally, they are really low to the ground.  It is hard to get that low and then not have leaves, grass, twigs, etc. get into distracting positions.

But, when you do get a good shot, it can really be something.  So here are a few of my favorites.

In this case I took advantage of all of the similar colors, placed the mushroom over in the corner and avoided distractions of trying to separate the mushroom from the leave litter.

In this case I was able to get quite close with a macro set-up (extension tube and lens) and just focus on the ribs. This again removed any distractions sticking up in the background.  I think the shallow depth of field really focuses the attention on the mushroom.

For this one I moved a few of the fallen twigs that were poking up.  The mushroom is on a rise from the trail so I could get down to it's level with my tripod. And I like the repeated slope of the mushroom cap and the moss behind it.

This one helped out by lifting the distracting element and made it an intricate part of the image.  The little sprig of grass is beside the mushroom so it adds a sense of scale instead of being distracting.  The the humor of the mushroom lifting the twig offsets any other technical problems.

And finally, my all-time favorite mushroom picture. My wife and I saw this while hiking in the Shenandoah Mountains last year. These mushrooms were growing out of the side of a bank at about waist level.  Easy to get to there level   My wife let me borrow her macro lens so I could get in really close.  they are probably no more than 1/4 inch tall.

Check out the other bloggers at Macro Monday and Our World Tuesday.

Seattle

My trip to the Pacific Northwest (See Hurricane Ridge posts) finished up with a day and a half in Seattle.  On Saturday, my wife and I left our B&B on the Olympic Peninsula and headed to the Botanical Gardens in Bellevue.  Being the intrepid gardener that she is, she really wanted to see a garden out there.  The climate for gardening is quite different from our home environment in Virginia and can support a much wider range of flowers.  We had planned on taking a ferry across Puget Sound but the GPS failed us and took back along the land route. Not only was it disappointing that we didn't get the ferry ride, and the possible birds along the way, but we hit heavy traffic in Tacoma.  When we arrived at the gardens it was Art in the Gardens day so it was quite crowded.  We did manage to get away from the main crowds and enjoy some of the flower displays and the wooded areas.  It was a nice place to visit but would have been better if we weren't already a bit stressed and overwhelmed with the crowds.  Below are a few shots from the gardens.

Sunday morning my wife headed back home.  Leaving the West Coast for the East Coast means an early flight, especially with the need for a connecting flight.  So I dropped her off at the airport about 5:30 am.  Since I was up, I decided to try to do some birdwatching.  According to the local birding trail guidebook, there was a beach in West Seattle that might offer a good chance at seeing migrating shore birds.  As I drove out there I noticed that the sunrise was going to be beautiful. There were high clouds to the east but not too dense.  Just as the sky was lightening I came across a pull-off.  I decide to turn in and see if I can get some sunrise pictures.  There were already two photographers there.  The pull-off provided a great view across the water to downtown Seattle.  The sun was creeping towards the sky just south of the city skyline.

After getting these shots I talked with the other two guys about the beautiful sunrise and my plans for the afternoon.  While neither were wildlife photographers, they did mention that there would be a lot of birds down on Alki Beach. So I head through the little neighborhood and down to the beach.

  As I reach the beach I see that the main road is closed for a 5k run and there is no public parking available.  At a loss, I turn and head towards one end hoping to find some place to park.  But there are few intercepting roads and a lot of nice apartment and condo buildings but with restricted parking.  I finally make it to the far east end of the beach where there is a boat launch and an open parking lot.  I walked about 3/4 of a mile down the beach and back.  There are a fair number of birds but almost all of them are Glaucous-winged Gulls.  The most interesting thing I saw was an adult and juvenile gull pulling apart clam or some other shellfish.

Sunday afternoon I headed downtown to see the sights.  Without really trying, except for heading downhill, I ended up at the Pike Place Market.  After grabbing lunch and taking some street photos, I headed back to the hotel to meet a friend for dinner.  I followed the waterfront to my cross-street and found this nice Ferris Wheel that looked really nice against the darkening, cloudy sky. Luckily there wasn't any rain and we had a nice dinner on the water.  The rest of the week was spent in meetings so this was basically the end of my fun.

Tuesday's Turkeys

While out driving the Colonial Parkway outside Williamsburg, VA this weekend, my wife spotted these wild turkeys feeding next to a pull-off.  They were quite calm as we watched from the car and then I got out and retrieved my camera from the trunk and captured some pictures.  A second car with a photographer pulled up behind us and joined in.  The turkeys feed for about five minutes before slowly vanishing into the woods.

After enjoying these be sure to stop by Tuesday's Tweets and Wild Bird Wednesday for much better photographs.