Month
Dec. 2010
Mushrooms 1
There's nothing quite like a real surprise! I'm traveling with a group of 18 photographers in the valley at Yosemite National Park. We find enough parking for 5 vehicles on the side of the road at Fern Springs so it looks like a photo opportunity. Imagine all these people and vehicles all trying to take pictures of this little spring which covers not more area than a Suburban SUV. I find humor in this kind of situation. I may be the only one.
With all the clicking and chaos at the little spring, I decided to take a walk and see whatever else could be photographed in the area. I crossed the road towards the Merced river, walked down a mild slope and behold, there was the largest bloom of mushrooms I had ever seen. While the individual mushrooms weren't particularly photogenic, they were in good condition and covered old tree trunks right down to the small streamlets that flowed around them.
I tried a few close-ups but was less than inspired. Most the group had now also discovered the mushrooms and were now in position also shooting close-ups. I decided to take a little different approach and shoot extreme wide angle images with strong foreground content. I took a number of shots but it was time to move to the next location.
Later that afternoon, we were on the other side of the Merced river and I decided to walk back, about a mile, to where the mushrooms were located. Wow, several members of the group were already there shooting more close-ups. I decided to re-shoot the mushrooms similar to what I done earlier in the day. The above image is a result of the re-shoot.
The image above was shot with a 8-16mm, zoom lens, an older cropped frame DSLR, at F8, ISO 640, mounted on a lightweight tripod with ball head.
Additional images can be viewed here.