The Easy Way Out (Or Would You Eat This Mushroom?)

I 'll admit it. This morning in creating this image I took the easy way out. It still involved some work and experience to create this image but I chose the easy way out to do it. I took it right next to my car(my back was against the bottom of the car) in my front driveway less than five minutes after I rolled out of bed.

The beginnings of this image are simple. I always keep my eye out for potential images. In coming home yesterday I spotted a mushroom growing right next to where I park my car. So I logged it into my memory banks . If it's an image that might be taken or shot in the future like a tree that needs to be shot in fall colors I'll write it down in my notebook for the future. If you use a day runner or planner that's even better as you can write it in around the future date in the fall when this image should be taken.

I liked this mushroom because it wasn't the pretty delicate or colorful mushrooms that I often like to photograph. It was covered with dirt from pushing up out of the soil and it was getting past its prime. It was certainly not the kind of mushroom that I probably would want to eat and that is what I wanted this image to be about.

So this morning just as the sun was just starting to come up I grabbed a macro lens, my trust ground pod, an led flashlight and an electronic cable/shutter release. I found my gnarly looking mushroom and laid down on the ground next to it. I set the camera to Aperature Priority and dialed in an aperature of F22.0 for maximum depth of field. I removed all the little leaves that would be hot spots around it . After I clicked the shutter I had plenty of time during the 2 second exposure to light up the underside of the mushroom with my flashlight to make the gills and stem stand out.

The final image was dark, gritty and gnarly looking just as I had envisioned. I wouldn't want to eat it that's for sure.

Sincerely and God bless you,

chris