If you crack open any decent mycology or fungus field guide, you will find many wild mushroom pictures and many drawings, prints, and photographs of all kinds of fungi, and their fungi kingdom habitat. Many of these are beautiful prints or wild mushroom photos, and all of them should at a minimum give you a better understanding of the fungi they depict. These mushroom photos fulfill their purpose and often provide more, but do they bring forth an emotional response in you? Do you lose yourself in them emotionally? On occasion yes, but often not. This is through no fault of the mycology photographer or mycology artist who takes these mushroom photos. It is because the purpose of those mushroom photographs is to show you the anatomical details of the fungi to allow you to identify them correctly and safely according to wild mushrooms mycology. You don't want to decide to eat a fungus based on a mushroom art print!
I create these prints because to me these fungi present an extraordinary natural beauty while simultaneously conjuring a world of fantasy which transcends it. They at their first appearance often are the smoothest, the softest, and the most delicate things imaginable. At their passing, they can be the most withered, the most rotting, and the most black and lifeless things imaginable. In the course of their fleeting lives they exhibit every state in between with equal fervor. In my mushroom picture art prints I try to capture what I can of their more tangible raw physical beauty, but I also try to capture their spirit and personality. To me there is a tremendous spirit of humanity within them, and I hope to expose it and to share it through the artistic interpretations which I create in my mushroom pictures and art prints.
Fungi Photo Art | FUNGUS photo Slides 1
Once the original wild mushroom pictures are taken, back in the 'digital photography darkroom' of the computer the images of the mushroom picture then serve as both inspiration and source for the creation of the digital 'master' photographs from which the final wild mushroom art prints ultimately will be created. The original digital mushroom pictures are in effect the raw material from which the mushroom picture digital masters are created for the mushroom prints. …
Fungi Photo Art | FUNGUS photo slides 2
Not only can an all-digital work environment allow for creative choices otherwise unattainable in the image creation process, but today's digital print methods offer more even after the 'digital master' is created. Technological advances in the digital printing process now readily make possible printing on nontraditional media such as canvas and fine art watercolor papers. For the fungi and wild mushoom art giclees which I create, I prefer the look and texture of heavy weight watercolor fine art 'board' papers. …
Fungi Photo Art | FUNGUS photo Slides 3
Each wild mushroom art print mushroom photo starts as a high resolution digital mushroom photograph (the original mushrooms picture which will result in the final fine art watercolor print). That is why these gallery mushroom prints and images may be referred to at times as 'mushroom photographs', 'mushroom pictures', or 'mushroom photos', etc. However, while the origin of each print lies in a mushroom photograph (the fungi or mushroom picture which was first captured by the camera), the final watercolor print is not at all a mushroom photograph in the traditional sense of photography.