Chat from October 14th: Live Online Exhibit of Woodland Wonderland
If you didn’t make it to the live exhibit you can still visit the exhibit online HERE.
KRISTIE: I will be online on Saturday, October 14th at 7pm for a live chat and Q & A about the exhibit “Journey Through Wonderland” found here:
I can’t wait to meet you all – I hope you can make it! If not, please post questions here before 7pm Saturday October 14th so I can answer them during chat time.
KRISTIE: Welcome! Type any questions you have here. Be sure to visit the Exhibit first here.
QUESTION 1/GUEST 417: Hello Kristie, I think your Wonderland photos are…well, wonderful! What made you start taking pictures of fungi? In the finished collection you can see the beauty, but “beautiful” isn’t usually what comes to mind when someone thinks of mushrooms and mold.
KRISTIE: I was doing a project where I took a walk every day for one year and tried to take a picture each day on the walk. The first few months I took photos of the most obvious and exciting – the animals. Then I ran out of new animal photos so I started on birds. Then I moved to insects. Then I started to do landscape. Finally, then I started noticing the fungi. Once I noticed them I was enchanted and could not stop taking photos of them.
QUESTION 2/GUEST 417: So it was almost an accident? What a great discovery.
KRISTIE: I didn’t even take much notice of the photos at first. I was so excited about seeing the fawns and foxes and different amazing animals on the trail. But as I started sorting the photos for the year I was drawn to the photos of the fungi. Now I can’t stop looking for them and trying to get more photos. I am still slightly obsessed with fungi – always trying to find them and then get just the right angle and lighting. Sometimes I’ll spend an hour on one photo.
QUESTION 3/GUEST 234: What sort of techniques did you develop once you started seeking these photos out? There are so many different colors and shapes it seems like some of these would be hard to find.
KRISTIE: I realized that lighting can make all the difference. Of course lighting can make all the difference in most photos but in photos of animals or people even bad lighting can result in a good photo because there might be action or an expression on their face. With fungi, however, they can look very dull if they are in the shade. They look best in gentle light or back-lit. They also look best after the rain when their colors are very bright. I will often run out the door right after a rainstorm passes to get the best photos. I also learned over time that a tripod and a wider depth of field can make a better shot. I have some shots I love but the depth of field is so low (from the low lighting where fungi are found) that only part of the fungi are in focus and that doesn’t work for a lot of the images I created.
GUEST 234: Thank you, I’ll keep my eyes open for the unexpected, it may turn out well!
KRISTIE: Thank you for visiting the exhibit tonight!
GUEST 417: It was a pleasure! I’m excited to see more work from you.
GUEST 18: Yes, thanks for the invitation. I really enjoyed seeing your photos. Cheers.
KRISTIE: Thank you so much for visiting and the kind words
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