Not sure why I like to go out fungus hunting.
Something about decay has always been attractive.
I have no interest in ever identifying what I find, but that’s true with just about everything I do.
Just another opportunity to be out in the woods, fungus hunting, squirrel hunting, flower hunting. All the same on some level.
It does give me the opportunity to go out blundering through the woods, searching out trees dead standing, dead falls, long dead and rotting trees.
Something relaxing about climbing around all this dead wood. The dead silence of the woods this time of year helps.
Takes a bit of focus I guess, observing rather than just looking.
I’ve been lamenting that most of the shots turn out like crap. Low light, camera shake, disastrous images.
Sunday I was paying attention to what I was doing. A tripod would be worthless here. Nowhere to put it. Trying to figure out where would kill the moment.
I guess I could get a longer lens, set up further away on level ground, zoom in tight.
But that ruins the way I like to do things. Get in tight, within inches, compose as much as possible in the viewfinder so I do virtually no cropping after the fact.
For now, I’ll practice what I know. Slow down my breathing, brace my arms to my sides and at the right moment between slow breaths, push the button.
Doesn’t always work, but I’ll take it.
Howard Levett
5 Oct 2015Well, from one lunatic to another, well done on those photos. I’m quite a bit the same way. I love old rotting decaying things.
Ken G
6 Oct 2015I blame the inner city Chicago neighborhood where I grew up Howard. Just about everything was built before 1900. Wandering the old streets and alleys was the best thing a kid could ask for.
Howard Levett
6 Oct 2015I hear you. I think the neighborhood I lived in (somewhere on Keeler Ave.) is the same. I think it was when I was young to. I remember a man driving a wagon pulled by horses calling “Rags and old iron.” Cool memory. Fungus…not so much.