The Blackening Wax Cap is a mushroom I saw for the first time last year when a student in one of my field trips captured its crimson beauty. I did not see it until the critique session. So this year I have been watching for it. I haven’t been photographing 
mushrooms too long. Previously I felt they weren’t a subject I had much interest in especially with the need to be belly to the earth. But I have changed my mind while seeking a new December-January subject. It is exciting to find a specimen in its various life stages, as short as their lives are. Soon I hope to post a portfolio dedicated to mushrooms as art.
As I have mentioned, I see photography as a form of visual spirituality. When I framed these mushrooms in my view finder with my face pretty much in the dirt of the earth I could smell their habitat. It may seem like I am only focused on getting the image and sometimes that is all I am doing. But I revisit the images again and again while gently chanting: “Earth my body, water my blood, air my breath and fire my spirit.â€Â Yes, we have a Beautiful Mother. See www.herchurch.org
Herring spawn in the San Francisco Bay on the rocks at ebb tide in the winter. For several years the fleet was either very small or not permitted to set their nets at all because the herring population was too small. But they are back. Although the three days they fished at sunrise near Sausalito were pretty gray days. In previous years I was fortunate to see their large catch and great sunrise colors. I actually missed a pink sky this year. So what to do 
in flat light, fog and a gray, gray, gray day. Mostly, come back next year. But what I managed was to think in terms of using the grays to create a more monotone image, almost high key with just enough orange – the buoys and slickers. Then I took the same image and inverted it. I am not sure it works. You be the judge. The birds swarming the fishing boat also helps this image! Shooting as an ISO equivalent of 1000 also adds to the “texture†of the image.
There are a few slots left in the Saturday, January 22 class-shoot. Scroll down for the details.