Artists of Fungi Photography: shadowfoxcreative

Jul 22, 201611 min read

Deviation Actions

Published: Jul 22, 2016

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Hello and welcome to an interview series that will introduce the artists of our monthly themed categories at AnimalsPlantsNature group! July is Fungi & Geology month and so we're exciting to be bringing you an interview with a talented fungi photographer to get a closer look at his artwork and his thoughts behind the pieces he submits to the DeviantArt community... shadowfoxcreative!

Introducing shadowfoxcreative!

Who is shadowfoxcreative? Tell us a bit about yourself!

My Name is Mark Fox, I'm from Dunedin in the South island of New Zealand. When I was 5 I took a self portrait in a mirror with my dad's camera and that was the start of my love of photography. I have been a member on DA for 8 years (this is my second account) I can't remember how I found it. I am currently not working but I do make a little from various photography jobs.

What attracts you to Animals, Plants, & Nature photography?

For me it's all about the adventure, discovering new places, going off the tracks and walking in the river or through thick bush being in the middle of it.

What do you find to be the most challenging part of Fungi Photography?

I am new to fungi photography so it has all been a bit of a challenge but I suppose the most challenging part has been learning how to shoot for and use focus stacking to get the best results (I'm still on that learning curve :P (Lick)

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What does a typical shoot consist of for you?

I'm a planner, I like to have a fairly good idea of what I'm doing and where I'm going. For my sunrise landscape type stuff I normally start with checking the weather and google maps, then I will use The Photographer's Ephemeris photoephemeris.com/ to work out sunrise time and direction and also check tides if I'm doing a beach shot. Once I have a plan I will decide on the gear I want to take, make sure batteries are charged, sort some food/drink and pack my bag. Then I get up have a good breakfast and either walk or ride my bike to the location. Once I'm there I just walk around looking for shots the head back home unpack my gear download my card onto my computer and sort my images into keepers and trash then edit the ones I like.

What have you found to be the best hiding spots for fungi?

Damp rotting logs seem to be good, but I honestly think it depends on the fungi.

What kind of camera gear do you own/use the most when shooting fungi photographs? What software do you use for post processing and what sort of editing do you normally do?

I currently have a Canon 20d and 700d My lenses are Tamron 10-24 Canon 55-250 (I have used this with and without extension tubes for most of My fungi shots) and a Canon 40 and 50. I use lightroom for My importing and sorting and photoshop for My editing. My editing is dependent of the image and My mood, Quite often I wont edit an image for days, weeks and even months after I have shot it.

How do you improve your skill as a photographer? Are you self-taught or are you professionally trained, etc?

My photoshop skills are self taught and I have a diploma in digital photography that I got in 2008, I will never stop trying to learn new things. I love sites like Phlearn and Creative live, YouTube alone is a great resource for learning new things (I used it to learn the basics of focus stacking).

How do you try and put a unique spin on your fungi photography? And tips or tricks for the readers to help their work stand out?

I think the shots themselves are fairly standard as I am new to the fungi world I am still working on getting the various compositions that work (and the ones that don’t), maybe what would set Mine apart is My editing style as that is something that I have carried over from My landscape shots.

Can you tell us how you captured and finished this photo?

This was shot on a tripod with my 700d and my 55-250 zoomed right in to 250, camera settings are 1/15sec @ f5.6 200ISO. I took 3 shots focused at the front center and back of the center fungi.

In photoshop I did a basic lens correction and pre-sharpen of the 3 shots in camera raw then I loaded them into layers and done a focus stack to blend them into the final single shot, then I done my colour editing using gradient maps and selective colour layers to get the tones and colours I liked, next I done some dodging and burning and a vignette to draw the eye to the subject and then a final sharpen and added my watermark.