Hola, setero! Greetings! Friday came to us again, which means I should go out and find some mushrooms - in the forest, in the backyard, in the nearest supermarket... or in my photo archive. As you may guess, the fungi I present today were not captured this February!
:D
This series of photos is from mid-June, taken at my city of St.Petersburg, in the hard of the house where I live -- literally just 100-150 m from my door. Let me tell you the story behind it.
| location: | St.Petersburg, Russia | June 2020 | natural light |
| camera/lens: | Canon 350D | Tamron 60mm | raw-conv |
| f/5 | t 1/60 | ISO 200 |
А возвращаясь, в моем собственном дворе, я увидел пень, на котором выросли роскошные грибы. Разумеется, я не брал с собой в магазин камеру с макро; не в силах пройти мимо, я расчехлил мой айфон-4 и сделал десяток говно-фоток, принес еду домой, поглядел фотки... я не мог думать ни о чем, кроме этого пня! До приезда машины оставалось 15 минут. Я схватил камеру и выбежал наружу. Грибы все еще были на месте!
Я сделал около ста фотографий, и был счастлив каждой из них -- я нашел новый, никогда еще не виданный гриб, очень фотогеничный, словно специально сделанный природой для макрофотографии! Мы явно были созданы друг для друга -- уже уезжая из города на всё лето, в последнюю минуту, мы встретились...
А потом оказалось, что это не редкий гриб, а наоборот, очень распространенный. Летом я имел еще несколько встреч с этим новым другом, и один раз осенью. Хэппи энд? Не совсем.
Dryad's Saddle is the name of this nice well-spread edible tree mushroom.
(I already presented this mushroom here, and told about its qualities). The funny thing is that my family had a move - we planned to spend two months of Summer holidays outside the city, in the countryside. We packed our things, ordered a truck that was supposed to transport us out of town, and on the day when the car was supposed to arrive, I went to the nearest store for food ...
On way back, in my own yard, I came across a tree stump on a lawn, with a whole bunch of luxurious mushrooms. Fantastic shapes! What was super cool: different life cycle stages were presented at one spot. Of course, I have no camera with me, only my shitty iPhone 4. I took a few shots, came home, examined the pics... I could not think of anything other than this stump! Damn, I needed to take a decent macro shots of it!! It was still 10-15 minutes before car's arrival, so I grabbed the camera and ran outside. The mushrooms were still there!
I managed to create about a hundred pics in 20 minutes, and was happy as an elephant! I found a never seen before fungus, very photogenic, as if the Nature specially created it for photography! Clearly, we were born for each other - as we met at last minute, while I was leaving city for the whole summer. Another funny thing -- it turned out it wasnt a rare mushroom. In summer I had a few more encounters with it. Happy end? Not at all...
Close-up cropped version below, above is full uncropped edition. It looks like a real alien! Stunning, fascinating! Some dexterous tentacle stretching out of the ground.
During the summer I took a few thousand of pictures, and almost forgot about this folder. So, most of this set is still unpublished on the blockchain.
During the session, a nice black beetle visited the mushroom and posed me in 3 pictures. I dont know its name.
And the last frame -- view from the downside (mushroom picked up).
It is over-matured and cracked on this photo.
...After that we moved for a few months out of the city, to the village. And on my return, by the end of the summer, I discovered that certain tree stump infected with Dryads saddle mycellium, was demolished and removed from the lawn -- no more mushrooms will pop up on that spot in 2021. Pretty sadly.
Thanks for visiting my blog!
All images taken by me, copyright (c) 
@qwerrie
@qwerriePost is set to 100% powerup, as always
Now, its time to part ways, I wish you good luck -- and Good Hunting!
And a little reminder: we have a nice fun challenge at HIVE, hold by @EwkaW.
I hope many of you will join, as there are only 2 simple rules:
- when Friday comes, share your fungi with us! post your own, original photo/drawing/art/food/anything-at-all of any type of fungi (yes, stolen images will be checked and reported !)
- add #fungifriday (not necessarily must be your 1st tag). that's all!
