One of the highlights of autumn each year is the fantastic array of fungi in our woodlands – something I’ve always enjoyed photographing as it’s a different approach and style to the norm of my work.
As well as having a number of local haunts that have worked well over the years I have also run a workshop at a great location in the south-east on precisely the same day of the year for the last half dozen or so now.
This year was the hardest I’ve ever known though – normally there are fungi in abundance in late October/early November but this really has been a bizarre autumn – warm, dry and frustrating for fungi and fungi photographers alike.
There was still enough to make it an enjoyable day with a good nuber of earthballs, a couple of very fresh fly agarics and some nice bunches of sulphur tufts too (although someone had decided to put a boot through the nicest bunch I’d spent the previous afternoon discovering…thanks whoever that was!) but as in so many ways this autumn I don’t think 2011 will be going down as my favourite fungi year for sure. Good job you learn to roll with things in this line and look forward to next year eh?!
