A Fungi frolic

(11 Photos) – I promised a fungi post a week ago! Busy week, but I did get another fungi finding frolic in this morning, down in the dark valley, beside a bubbling brook … well, rivulet, but that spoils the alliteration.

Did you spot them? Finding fungi is fun – and funny. It takes a while to get your eye in before you start seeing them and then they jump up out at you. These two were actually the last one’s I saw today and they were the biggest, but I’ll set the scene for you with the Laowa 7.5mm wide lens first.

Now for the 60mm macro on Olympus EM1 II. The following images are each made of 15 photos, focus stacked in camera to increase the narrow depth of field … let’s start with last week’s.

I was a bit rushed and hadn’t used the macro for a while, nor looked for fungi.

I didn’t find many interesting fungi in the 40 minutes I had and to be honest, I wasn’t happy with my rushed photography efforts either, I knew I had to go. Let’s move onto today’s shoot where I had a little more time.

I found a large log and most of these were taken on it, or under it – like the shots above and below, fungi pushing up through the leaf litter.

Now let’s move on top of the beautiful moss covered log …

The ones in the filtered light are much smaller and delicate, like little faerie parasols!

I love getting lost in this tiny little world! The noise of the babbling rivulet disappears, time has no meaning, the world of human demands does not exist. I want to stay here forever, with the sweet smell of forest decay and emergence of tiny new life. So much to discover in a small area, life unnoticed by anyone else.

And back to our original subject, the last fungi I spotted as the unreality of time intervened. Another life called. Slaves to money.

Tall white stems reaching high, the sky, filtered through the tree tops, reflected in the moist brown caps.

Until next time … time to go! Photographing fungi doesn’t pay the bills 😦