It seems to me on days that my time for photography is limited I end up doing some of my more creative work. The past few days I have had personal time to do some photography but I just couldn’t seem to get the creative juices flowing. I don’t know, maybe my brain just needs a little down time or something.
After the rain of the first part of the month, I finally got around to cutting my grass today. But before I did, I found a number of mushrooms growing in the shady part of my yard. They were pretty big and I thought I would grab a few shots of them before tearing them out. Again I was trying to shoot at awkward angles since the ‘shrooms were, of course, at ground level. I took a few shots with my Super-Takumar 50mm using the live view of my camera since I needed to see in order to manual focus. It wasn’t ideal but it worked, somehow. When I used my DA17-70, I just held the camera and relied on the autofocus, checking the compositions on the LCD afterwards. I seem to put myself in these funky shooting positions often enough to make me realize what features I really need in a camera. Whenever I upgrade my gear in the future I should know exactly what I want, after all of the different shooting situations I put myself through!
The mushroom shots aren’t anything spectacular but I did like my choice for the 365 photo because it looks like some kind of alien mothership hovering above my yard. I went with a sort of retro look processing for this series because mushrooms make me think of the 70’s for some reason. Pentax K20D, DA 17-70, Super-Takumar 50mm (last two shots).
Click on pics for larger view
Shroom No.2
© David Guidas
What I Pic 
Pretty nice, I like the post work.
Thanks!
LOL! I did the same thing – took mushroom pictures in the backyard. My husband couldn’t believe that all the time he spent trying to find stinkhorns in the woods and they were now in our backyard.
http://dogear6.com/2011/09/20/mellow-mushrooms/
Nancy
Cool. I had quite a few of them, probably, like you said, due to the damp conditions from the recent rains. I just pitch ’em. Even though I like mushrooms, I’m not up on which ones are edible. I’ll just go to the grocery store.