Stacking Up

Having spent the past week in London I was looking forward to the weekend and hoped to get outdoors with my camera but things didn't work out that way and so I am going back over old files and I picked this picture for my blog today.

I love all things outdoors and I think fungi make fantastic subjects because of the textures, shapes and colours, and of course at this time of year there are plenty about. In this shot I like the crisp clean colour of the individual layers contrasted with the lush green of the moss.

There's Not Mushroom

How can you tell my blog is full? ...because there's not mushroom for anymore pictures...

Ok I know that was terrible so enough of the bad jokes let's just focus on the pictures.  I love fungi, the varied colours, shapes and sizes and I know people who would be searching for fairies wherever they find fungi like the Fly Agagric in the first two pictures.

The first couple of pictures were taken at Blean Woods just outside of Canterbury it was the first time I had ever seen this type of fungus so I went a bit mad and took quite a few shots, getting right down in the dirt to get the angles I wanted.

The next two pictures and the last one were taken at Bickerton Hill in Cheshire (I've used several pictures from there in previous posts) and the fifth picture was taken in the New Forest.  I don't know what species these are but I think my favourite is the third one, I love the shape, the colour and the texture, for me its a perfect mix.

Fungi

Today is day three of my photos from Bickerton Hill and the Sandstone Trail.  From the title of the blog it will be obvious that the pictures will be of fungi.

This is a great time of year for fungi and within just a few metres  there were several varieties to be seen, the photos I have chosen for today show a small selection of what we saw on Saturday.

Many of the fungi we found were a bit ravaged by wind, rain or the trampling feet of walkers and their dogs and I tried to find the least damaged specimens for my pictures.  Some which were growing on decaying wood or tree trunks were easy to get to while those growing on the ground required a bit more effort, personal dexterity and the full capabilities of my tripod in order to get close enough and hold the camera steady enough to get the shot.

In three of the photos below I think I have managed to get the best specimen but the fly agaric (the red one) has a chunk taken out of the stalk which appears to have been eaten away by some small creature, I could have chosen to take the shot from the other side which was undamaged but I thought the missing piece added something to the image...

Canon EOS 6D 24 - 105mm @ 95mm f4.5 ISO 100 1/50s

Canon EOS 6D Canon 100mm f2.8 macro f8 IS0 200 1/40s

Canon EOS 6D 100mm f2.8 @ f8 ISO 160 1/40s

Canon EOS 6D 100mm f2.8 @ f8 ISO160 1/30s