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Mushroom Family

September 10, 2014 6 Comments

Mushroom Family https://www.weeklyfifty.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/WeeklyFiftyPodcast2014September10MushroomFamily.mp3

This is a classic example of how photo opportunities can be found in everyday life, if we take a little time to open our eyes just a bit wider to the world around us. The other day when my coworker and I left our building to run a short errand I noticed a small patch of mushrooms by the stairs, and at first didn’t think much of it. But as we walked past, I noticed how there was one tall mushroom and two shorter ones–almost like a father, his wife, and their offspring. Of course this personification is somewhat silly and childish, but it’s often through the eyes of a child that we see the world as it really is. Or perhaps, what it really can be.

I returned a short while later with my camera and lay flat on the ground, trying to get the framing just right. The overcast sky made for spectacular lighting, and I wanted to get the background just right so that this fungal family seemed almost ethereal and even a tad dreamlike. I shot this at f/2.8 since f/1.8 resulted in such a shallow depth of field that the middle mushroom was out of focus, and used ISO 200 to get things all nice and silky smooth. One thing that caught my eye in Lightroom was a bit of chromatic aberration along the top side of the mushrooms, which I am guessing was due to the extraordinary contrast between the white subject, dark background, wide aperture, and relatively inexpensive glass (higher-quality lenses handle this better at wider apertures, but a $200 Prime lens is a far cry from a high-quality L-series lens). Thankfully, software can fix these issues fairly easily and I am quite pleased with the result.

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Comments

  1. Tom says

    September 10, 2014 at 9:04 am

    Any Smurf or Hobbit would love your little mushroom family!

    Reply
    • Simon says

      September 10, 2014 at 11:57 am

      Ooo…I like it. I should go back and check to see if any Smurfs are hanging around the area :)

      Reply
  2. AB says

    September 10, 2014 at 11:51 am

    It looks to me like a mom kissing her child on the forehead!

    Reply
    • Simon says

      September 10, 2014 at 11:58 am

      I didn’t think of it that way, but I can certainly see it. “You’ll be a big mushroom someday, little one…”

      Reply
  3. Dave Erho says

    January 24, 2015 at 8:02 am

    Good for you for keeping your eyes open to find this interesting subject. I like it. Did you consider cropping to hide the little bit of green in the upper left and fill the frame more with the subject? Can’t tell if you mentioned that in the audio since I don’t have sound available at the moment. Having fun going through your posts. God bless.

    Reply
    • Simon says

      January 26, 2015 at 1:28 pm

      I actually did consider cropping out the greenery in the top-left, but kept it in there as a splash of color. I decided to not crop too tightly on the mushrooms because I wanted there to be a bit of context–almost as though they were nestled in some kind of cozy, dark cave.

      Reply

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