I needed to escape the office the other day so I set on a road trip with no planned destination. After a few false starts I ended up at Broad Pool, hoping to get a good sunset as the clouds were looking good on the horizon with space for the sun to get through. As can happen with a lot of days that look promising, at the last stage the light just dies. Low cloud on the horizon completely blocked the sun, flattening the light totally. At this point it is common to believe that the days photographing is over, but quite often the light after sundown is great with bizarrelythe light levels increasing momentarily. The above image has a wide contrast range which needed controlling with both a 3 & 2 stop ND graduated filter. I tried both hard and soft graduations, finding that the harder edge was better even though the trees became a silhouette above the horizon. I later lightened them in Adobe Lightroom.
The recent warm, damp weather has been perfect for fungi and a few were found around Broad Pool. The hay cap shown above were found next to an animal track and looked fairly recent. They are poisonous and cause hallucinations if eaten, so not very good for breakfast!
I haven’t noticed this fungi before when out and about, but this is the classic presentation of the Egg Shell Toadstool. It grows on horse or cow dung and due to this is deemed not suitable for eating. I don’t think anybody wants to try it to see if it is suitable!
Although around all year, the next few months will be the most active time for fungi, so I will be looking forward to finding more. They also give me something to photograph on windy days as the don’t move much compared to flowers!
