The Art of Fungi Photography.

At long last I have received my latest book, The Art of Fungi Photography. When I set out to produce this book I didn’t realise just what a rocky road I would be embarking on.

The photography I spread over three years and I had a clear aim, to produce techniques and images that were very different from what I termed ‘standard toadstool images’. There’s nothing wrong with these, and indeed, I produce many like this every year but when you have been doing so for a long time I find I get bored. I often ask myself now why I am I doing this? And what is the point, what are the images going to be used for?

Now that image markets are declining and changing there is almost no point in amassing thousands of images to gather dust in the hard drive. Social media is one answer, and I do use this but I find it as frustrating as beneficial.

I have written two books before this one and loved the whole process and both, like this were self-published. The production of a book requires careful planning and in this case I decided after much research that I would set out to write a technique book that explored an arty approach to fungi photography. Having seen many Bird Photography books and realised that the vast majority are simply repeats of what went before, with minor updating, I knew I didn’t want to follow this path.

Careful research, mainly on the web, showed me that the vast majority of fungi photography is actually very stale. True, there are a few photographers who produce some beautiful fungi images but on the whole the field is a very uniform one. I quickly realised that a fresh approach was needed and that, whilst there are many fascinating photographic techniques out there, bar a couple, not many are applied to fungi photography.

I soon realised that I would have to learn new methods, like infra red photography whilst others I would have to create myself from scratch such as the work with fireworks, bioluminescence and Spirits of the Toadstool. All the methods I have used are fully explained in the book. 

Once I had completed all the photography I sought out a printer, and here I made a colossal mistake. If it’s too good to be true!!! Anyway, I was suckered punched. Suffice it to say I lost all my money and never received any books that were of saleable quality. A bitter blow difficult to stomach.

What was I to do? I had only one real choice, to start again and find a new printer, who actually turned out to be the same printer I used for my other two book. I can almost hear the cries ‘why didn’t you use them from the start? It’s a simple answer, costs. I have had to pay more for the printing this time and taking into account the lost money the profits from this book are virtually nil, though if I sell them all, I retrieve the lost money so stay economically at a standstill.

So was it worth doing the book again? Definitely yes! The book looks fantastic and all the work over the last three years has not been wasted even though I won’t get paid for it.

If you would like to buy a copy of The Art of Fungi Photography please go to the link on the top of the webpage.Thanks Paul.