question, Larry

I am attaching some pics of mushrooms that I took. Not many know that I have been taking mushroom photography classes at night and on certain holidays. I would like you to critique my skills, give me a few pointers if needed. Please don't hesitate to say something negative if you can find something. I can handle it, afterall I am a fungi. (ha ha) "fungi"

you will find above mentioned mushroom pics attached below with a few cabbage plant pics thrown in.

PS--I also throwed in a pic of a tree I took and a coconut with a lime in it.

 

i think i just had a flashback.

 

....

 

from a scientific perspective, they are probably very useful.

from an artistic view, there are many ways to make them more interesting. here are some tips:

1. get out of auto mode. hardly anything ineresting ever happens there.

2. change your perspective. lay down in the grass and get close to where the mushrooms can fill the frame. shoot them as a forest of towering trees.

3. convert your images to grayscale. the color on these fungi doesn't add to the visual interest of the image. boost their "personality" by desaturating the image. also play with the contrast and sharpness.

4. shoot in raw mode and use a raw convertor to process your images. shooting in raw offers up a whole new world of creativity to digital photographers. similar to the myriad developing options available in a traditional darkroom, with a raw convertor (i use adobe's lightroom - in beta version) you can push exposure, change tones, adjust shadows and highlights -- all without destroying the digital negative. you will be much happier as a photographer if you learn to shoot raw. it helps you recover data in highlights and shadows previously thought lost (to jpeg shooters).

5. change the time/date on your camera. these pics were stamped jan. 13, 2006. newer cataloging software makes full use of the exif data, so you'll want to be sure that you give it accurate info.

hope those help. i've got some mushroom pics, but they are at home.