29 • 09 • 2020
Feast Your Eyes on Autumn Mushrooms
Now is the time when Latvian forests entice a significant part of people to go mushroom picking. We can constantly hear the “mushroom pickers'” stories, as well as see countless pictures of baskets full of mushrooms on social networks; it all encourages us to consider mushrooming as a Latvian folk tradition, to some extent wrapped in the spirit of competition.
The number of seekers of edible mushrooms in the forests today is quite impressive. However, not all mushroom pickers go to the forest to find as much foodstuff as possible. People who are obsessed with mushroom picking and, at the same time, do not think that the mushrooms they find should definitely be eaten or sold, engage in untraditional mushroom picking – they admire the fruit bodies of mushrooms with their eyes.
A mushroom picker who qualifies the mushrooms found not only in categorises such as edible or inedible, gradually also learns to pay attention to the unusual creatures called mucus mushrooms. These people first of all appreciate the richness of the fantastic shapes and colours of mushrooms, and not their edibility. A diverse, unique, to some extent even surreal world is generously revealed to those who indulge into untraditional mushroom picking.
Unfortunately, many of the interesting mushrooms and mucus mushrooms are not big enough to be enjoyed right on the spot in the forest, with the naked eye. That is why a camera is very useful for the untraditional mushroom picking (especially with the macro mode), since it allows you to capture your find in a photo and then look at it more closely at home.
Shooting mushrooms and mucus mushrooms can be such an exciting task. Often a person who has started doing it chooses to go to the forest without a basket and a knife, but equipped with a camera instead. A mushroom photographer will always have something to take home, because mushrooms are to be found almost everywhere and, literally, all year round. Yes – all year round. Polypore fruit bodies can also be seen in winter! Moreover, there are species of mushrooms the life manifestations of which appear in the cold season.
Mushroom photographers are attracted by the beauty and peculiarity of nature. They usually do not touch the mushrooms that they see, but look at them, admire, photograph them, enjoy these exciting biological objects. Through social networks, nature photographers also help other people learn more about the wonders of the amazing world of mushrooms.
The gorgeous mushrooms
By the way, mycologists (mushroom researchers) say that Latvian mushrooms have not been studied enough, so any camera owner who is involved in photographing mushrooms and demonstrates their work to the public, willingly or unwillingly, can become a discoverer of a species not yet found here. Good luck!
