Welcome to the world of Fungi, the most underrated and ignored organisms in the world! Fungi play an important role in recycling waste and in this case, recycling wood. However, in this case, the fungi you see are feeding on the tree they are growing on and in a few years, they will have eaten into the core of the tree forcing it to collapse. These fungi grow up from the tree's roots or even the trunk's very centre. They grow stems, roots or tubes that burrow deep into the tree's roots or the trunk's very centre. The fungus I have photographed might be the big Polyporous Bracket Fungus. In these images, the fungus is a fruiting fungus and these fungi are going through the process of guttation which means that they are exuding water and metabolites produced by fungal cells. These exudates contain mycotoxins, antimicrobials, insecticides, bioherbicides, antiviral and anti-cancer agents. Some of these exudates might contain heparin-like chemicals which if ingested might prevent the coagulation of blood causing the person to die of bleeding! The fungus photographed in this post could be Ganoderma curtisii or the Golden Reishi mostly found in the southeastern United States.
If you look at the photograph above, you will notice the exudates on top of the conk. One of these has a yellowish colour while the other one is light in colour.
Dear reader, welcome to a world rarely seen before! Macro photography opens up a a whole new world never seen before by the naked eye! It highlights the beauty and grandeur of minuscule organisms and nature's creations that have never been seen in real life. Some of the photographs in this blog post are not for the squeamish.
Macro photography opens up a whole new world that looks alien, weird and out of this world. It is challenging to get close to the objects that draw your attention. People use tripods and stuff. though that hampers one's style! A steady hand and a kit lens might suffice for most people, so it does for me. I am amazed by the options open to macro photography and honestly, most of these photographs have been taken handheld, resulting in most cases in my pants at the knees getting muddied by the mud.
Like fungi, Dragonflies have an important role in maintaining balance in the ecosystem. They eat up all those nymphs or small insects that swarm wetlands or even urban areas that have trees. Of course, the challenge for me was to track the flying dragonfly and focus on it. I was incidentally using a 70-300 mm usm Canon lens, not a good option for macro photography, since it is used for wildlife photography.
The two moths pictured below were shot with an 18-55 mm EFS Canon lens, more suited for Macro photography. The moths photographed below are the Beet Webworm Moths.
The creature photographed below is called the Pale Green Assassin bug. I wonder who its next target might be!
Of course, butterflies can be beautiful and so, to help you feast your eyes on the splendid colours of nature, I am sharing a couple of photographs of butterflies.
Mushrooms are interesting to photograph and they are mostly seen during the monsoon season. The standalone mushrooms grow into full-grown varieties that can be spotted at the foot of trees.
Spiders make for interesting objects to capture in the macro mode. The spider I have photographed below is one that I have seen at my house. Please don't be surprised by the clarity, I took these snaps from the plate glass of the window of my bedroom. This was a tiny spider no bigger than the head of a matchstick. I have seen larger spiders than this one.
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