The Light Fantastic

Fungi, originally uploaded by http://andrewskelton.net.

Today’s image, and the batch of photos uploaded to Flickr, are those taken during the fruitful (boom, boom) photo session I described yesterday. The art of capturing mushrooms, and anything else for that matter, is generally to get down to their level which with fungi can certainly be interesting. The biggest gotcha when taking such photos, genuflecting before the fungi is to check the ground around where you’re working for.. erm… signs of animal deposits – that’s probably the most polite what I can put it. It’s not nice, even if the photo is one of your best, to go around smelling foul for the rest of the day (more than normal of course!).

There are a couple of things I carry around with me, one is a piece of kit I bought, the other I usually find whilst in situ. I have a fold out knee rest – not that I need to rest my knees but more to ensure I don’t walk around with a dampness around the patella part of your trousers, that’s not pleasant either. The second thing I look for is a twig or stick I can use to try and clear the ground around something I want to photograph. Leaves, stems, and other detritus can detract from a photo and I use the stick to get rid of any distractions (especially other photographers!) – not that you necessarily want to have a clear area all around your subject for every subject, it just depends what story your photo is trying to tell (mine are all horror stories – horror that such bad photos can come out of such a great camera (or “Awesome camera” for those who’ve been here for long enough).

The UK is suffering from a mini heat wave this week, something we usually refer to as an Indian Summer. It turns out we are using this phrase incorrectly; rather than referring to a late summer spell of sun, to have a true Indian Summer we should have had some sort of frosts prior to the increase in temperature – this usually more likely in late October or through November. What we’re currently having is just a late summer. Also we often think this term has come from the East, it hasn’t it refers to Native American out west and was first used around 1780. You see, you learn a little every day.

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