How to Photograph Mushrooms

Mushrooms pop up after a rain and provide photographers with a variety of colors and textures to capture with the camera. Here are tips to get good photos of mushrooms.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• a camera with a close-up feature
• an outside area, preferably a wooded area

1. 
    

   First find the mushrooms. These can be more plentiful after a rain and in areas rich in decomposing wood or leaves. Walk slowly and look for small spots of color (white, yellow, red, orange, brown) in the woods. Peer into shadowy spots and under low-hanging branches.
   If you find one, look around as often there are others nearby.
   Return to the same mushroom the next day and next to record its changes.

2. 
    

   Get down to the level of the mushroom to get a close-up shot. Look at the background and choose which side makes the best picture.

3. 
    

   Set the camera to close-up mode. In many digital cameras this is indicated by a flower icon.

4. If it's very shady and the flash wants to go off, switch that off. The flash causes glare and washes out the color of the mushroom.

5. Remove small sticks, overhanging pieces of grass and other things that obstruct the view of the mushroom. Brush off bits of dirt from the top. A small, soft make-up brush is ideal for this.

6. 
    
   Emerging mushroom

   Sometimes I leave the twigs and dirt clinging to the mushroom to show how it emerges from the forest litter.

7. 
    

   Look at groupings of mushrooms too for variety in your shots. Another way to add variety is to include adjacent rocks, tree stumps, ferns or pine cones in the shot.

8. 
    

   Take the photo low enough to get the stem and cap in the picture if possible. This shows its size and cap shape. A photo looking straight down on the mushroom cap works well too, showing the full color of the top.

9. 
    

   Get close to the mushroom. For close-ups you can be 3 or 4 inches and up to 10 inches from the subject.

10. 
     

    Hold the camera steady while taking the picture. Ideally use a tripod to get the most crisp photo.

Tips & Warnings

• Take extra batteries along in your pocket.
• Spray with mosquito repellant as they will pester you when you start moving aside branches in the woods.
• Tuck a plastic grocery bag in your pocket. This comes in handy to kneel on while taking a picture. Use it also to protect your camera if it starts raining.

Resources

• My mushroom photos on Webshots
• Site with photos to identify mushrooms

[DUSTYMILLS]

on 7/16/2008 Mushrooms are so interesting. There are so many shapes and colors and to top it off, many are delicious to eat. Your photos are wonderful!

[dsarokin]

on 7/15/2008 What an interesting subject to write about and photograph. The Step 6 photo is particularly handsome. Thanks for sharing.

[Hapworth]

on 7/14/2008 These are beautiful photos!