Autumn Colour

Fly Agarlic mushrooms from last year

Today is my birthday.

I mention this not to try and elicit congratulations. After all I have been round the sun enough times for the point to be reached where a birthday becomes less about the future but more about the past.

However a birthday is the one day in the year where I feel that I can free myself from family obligations without guilt and spend a day doing what I want to do.

That inevitable means of course something photography related, however with the freedom of being selfish in how I do it.

In the UK, when planning ahead it is unwise to rely on the weather. Therefore I decided to go and try some photo mushrooms and toadstools. It is right time of year for these annual visitors to show themselves. With most mushrooms and other assorted fungi occurring in wooded areas, the theory was that even if it rained I would still be able to get some shots. As it was the weather turned out OK. Overcast, but relative warm and best of all rain free.

I decided to go to Jubilee woods  near Loughborough. It is an area of mixed deciduous and evergreen woodland, and in the past I have seen and photographed a number of mushrooms, including the perennial photographers favorite, the fly agarlic toadstool.

I must admit, though I love my family greatly, there is considerable joy in just being on your own and just photographing. As it was I took a number of shots of various fungi, plus some other shots which showed the beginning of Autumn.

Unfortunately there were no big red toadstools were to be seen. I find they do not stay around for long, because they act as a big red target to all boys and tend to be kicked to death soon after blooming.

I also wanted to take some shots from below the mushroom with a flash to illuminate the gills, but I could none in which I could get low enough. However the fungi I found made up for that and generally I am happy with the results.

Although I took a whole plethora of kit, I found that my Tamron 90mm macro was really all I needed. This has become my goto lens this year. it is probably my sharpest lens, is fast and best of all is a macro. This makes it perfect for the closeups in poor light. While I did use my tripod a few times , generally I found I did not need it unless I wanted better depth of field.


It also appears we are still a few weeks from full Autumn, which is by far my favorite time of year. Hopefully I will be able to get a few more days like this.

However all in all a good birthday.

As happens, these were next to the car park, and were probably the best mushrooms I found