Day 2 touring NZ’s S Isl happened upon this rotting log along a trail at Pelorus Bridge. A sea of very tiny orange mushrooms (bonnet mushrooms per Picture This app) were erupting from a bed of geen moss. Rain forest canopy shaded all direct sunlight. So out came the Sirui 025 (ballhead mounted directly on legs, it can function as a very low tabletop tripod) + knee pads.
Type of Critique Requested
Aesthetic: Feedback on the overall visual appeal of the image, including its color, lighting, cropping, and composition.
Conceptual: Feedback on the message and story conveyed by the image.
Emotional: Feedback on the emotional impact and artistic value of the image.
Specific Feedback and Self-Critique
Does it have impact? Can it be improved?
Technical Details
Sony a7Riv + Tamron 28-200 @ 43mm. ISO 100 2.5" f/16 focus stack in Helicon, all edits in Lrc. Center cropped from a wider view.
Richard this is a nice find here. Does it have impact? It did for me as a really fun scene to have come upon and photograph for sure. Can it be improved upon? This can be monitor dependent so no big deal I turned the Gamma down -10 and Exposure up 5+ for just another look. So, no drastic changes at all. I’m sure you could play around with some crops to isolate certain small gatherings for some additional separate scenes too.
Richard: Really delightful little scene and a fine capture. I can also see a number of frame filling crops just including the mushrooms alone. If this is full frame the big sensor of the A7RIV would let you do this easily. Top notch image as is. >=))>
Oh how I love a nice mushroom-scape. Glowing, bumpy shapes and all that moss! So glad you were there to catch it. That said, the colors look quite oversaturated on my monitor. The shades look off, too. Everything should be slightly warmer so far as my experience with this species goes. The tiers of them just seem endless and that log they’re on must be a great environment for them. The fuzzy netting on some toward the right looks to be another type of fungus. Cool.
Thanks. I’ll play with saturation. I applied Adobe Landscape in the import, then did not do any color channel edits. Only edits were cropping, exposure, texture.
Part of the dilemma is whether to attempt exact color rendition or to create impact. Different people, for instance, see red differently (which is why fire engines moved to other bright colors). I’ve faced this dilemma when processing under water images. From deep depths should we display the dull green cast we see with ambient light, or the vivid colors exposed with strobes? I’ve had the same experience with red and violet flowers photographed beneath dense green foliage. To bring out the reds and violets requires artificial light. I usually chose the more spectacular color renditions since I’m after visual impact rather than forensic like reproduction. But this image did not have color enhancement beyond the Adobe landscape profile, and was with natural light. Reminds me of choosing color film based on how we wished to display our scenes, Ektachrome for blues, Kodachrome for reds, Fujichrome etc.
Richard, I love this bed of fungus you stumbled upon. I have never seen these before in the wild so I cannot tell you if the color is accurate or not, but being one prone to saturated images, I can say that I love the colors the way they are. As others have pointed out, there is likely a crop in there that could give a different feel, especially cropping out the log at the top. But I like the expanse of this one as is. Just a great capture of a wonderful scene.
