Autumn Morning

The weather forecast for Friday predicted 'fog, lots of fog'. So inspite of a Thursday night out, I got up early on Friday to photograph a foggy sunrise at the local heathland.

When I got there, the sunrise was nothing but very disappointing. Hardly any color in the sky and the fog seemed to have missed this part of the world. All in all a rather bland morning, but nonetheless I got some nice images and learnt about some good spots for when circumstances are bound to be better in the near future. Too bad sunrise will be an hour earlier next time!


On Saturday, I went to the international nature photography festival of the GDT in Germany. Presentations by Andy Rouse and Manuel Presti were very inspiring as expected. The exhibition of the winning images of this years contest was great as well. Beautiful large prints of the best European nature photography has to offer at this moment. Make sure to check out their website next week to have a look at the winning images. Overall winner was a real Spanish stunner: a fisheye shot of a Griffon Vulture feeding on a carcass, taken from within the carcass!

Heathland at sunrise; Canon 1D Mark III w. 17-40/4 L; 4s at F16 and ISO200; Tripod, remote release and ND Grad filter.

Beech Babes

Arguably the prettiest of the toadstools to be found in the beech forest must be the Porcelain Fungus. The hoods are very pretty and shiny (hence their name), the underside of the hood is even more beautiful and a treat to the avid macro photographer.

I had been looking for these 'beech babes' in my own area, but the only beech forest around is kept too tidy, with hardly any dead wood on the forest floor. No dead wood = no toadstools. This weekend, we set out to a very old beech forest in the center of the Netherlands with a small group of photographers from our camera club.

It took no more than 10 meters before we had found the first few individuals of my nemesis species. We found many more, some very small, others about 10 centimeters in diameter, some all alone, others in a nice family group. Depicted here is a small group that had found a home about 50 centimeters above the ground on a vertical tree log.

It was all but easy to position the camera on a tripod below the toadstools AND myself underneath the camera.

I used a wide angle lens in order to photograph not only the toadstools but also part of their environment. The resulting images were a bit boring. To add some drama, I chose a small aperture and a long shutterspeed. During the exposure, I zoomed out the lens to achieve the radial blur effect. A wireless flash into a silver reflector provided the light from below and the much needed sharpness on the Porcelain Fungi.

Porcelain Fungi; Canon 1D Mark III w. 17-40/4 L; 0.6s at F16 and ISO100; Wireless flash and reflector, Gitzo tripod. 

The Two-toned Toadstool

Yes, another weekend of fungal photography. With the heavy rains of the last days, fungi and toadstools are popping up virtually everywhere. Funny thing is that I went to local forests to photograph them, when today I found out that we have several very pretty fungi in our own little city garden.

About two years ago, we placed several rotten branches and a heavy piece of three trunk in the garden. It appears the fungi feel right at home on these chunks of wood. Even the second-hand forest is very much alive!.


The more time I devote to toadstool photography, the harder I find it to create something 'different' and creative. After spending several hours with a sole little toadstool, I had photographed it from every imagineable angle and I had used all kinds of light reflectors and refractors. So I decided to create the 'difference' in Photoshop. The image above is not really special by itself, just three toadstools in a row. It was converted into a duotone, using the technique described in one of the very first entries into this blog, somewhere around August 2008. I think the brownish/sepia tones fit the current season quite well.

Fungus species; Canon 1D Mark III with 150/2.8 and extension tube. 1/3s at F4 and ISO 200. Tripod.

Fungus Frenzy II

Although it is still very dry and the heavy autumnal rains are yet to come, in several local forests it is hard not to find any fungi and toadstools. I went to a mixed beech and oak forest on Friday, and a mostly coniferous forest on Saturday. Both yielded huge amounts of fungi, but both offered completely different species. I will be going back over the next few weeks to check for other species. I would love to see and photograph a Porcelain Fungus, but they are very rare around here.

Of the many species I did find, I liked the small mycenae best, with their delicate forms and translucent hoods. A small change in the direction and quality of light can produce a completely different photograph with these fungi. I find it much harder to create a decent photograph from any of the larger toadstool species.

As for the technique: there is (literally) a day and night difference between the light levels on the hood and underneath. To overcome this issue, you can use some sort of a reflector. I brought a folded first-aid blanket, with a gold and silver side.

The gold side produces surreal colors and warmth. Too surreal to my liking hence I hardly used it. The silver side however produces stunning clarity and some sparkingly fresh colors. I also experimented with indirect flash, by firing the flash into the reflector and back onto the subject. More ideas in my brain, I hope to bring these ideas to life in the next few weeks. As I also re-opened the forest feeding station, it will be hard to divide the sparse sparetime between subjects!

Fungus species; Canon 1D Mark III w. 150/2.8 and extension tube; 0.4s at F2.8 and ISO 200; Tripod and remote release, mirror lock-up and reflector