Thursday, 2nd October 2008
Enchanted Night
by Yangchen Lin
Bioluminescent mushrooms. D2X 4-minute exposure. True colour. No artificial light. No 'photoshop'.
Yangchen Lin
Website: Photos
Enchanted Night by Yangchen Lin was photo of the day on Thursday, 2nd October 2008. It is tagged Fungus, Mushrooms, Night. You can leave a comment below.
23 Comments
Katherine Lee Strassburg
Fungi fascinate me, so I LOVE this shot! I’m glad you told us there were no enhancements(I like my nature photos ‘pure’), but we’re still left wondering whether it was taken outdoors or in a lab–what season–what is actual size? The color is great–they look like tiny fairy dancers twirling their skirts.
Courtney Platt
Gorgeous! What a dream subject, glowing in it’s own light! Life holds spectacular surprises in the diversity of forms it has taken on our miraculous planet.
Ariel
Oh wow. I was surprised at first to hear that this was natural light. Bioluminescence rules! Just like this shot!
Anurag
You have really made me curious. where are they? why the luminiscence?
I’m hungry for knowledge!!!!
Anurag
Visited your website. — Amazing unbelieveable macros!!
Pauline Jones
I have never heard of bioluminescent mushrooms; where do you find them?
Larry
Great Shot. Reminds me of a mystical dream.
planet lover
What a glorious planet we live on! Very beautiful, delicate plants. Probably poisonous?
Malta Photography
very interesting shot apart from the color I also like the depth of field used.
Marie Dunphy Harding
Simple & Different for Earth Shots.
I like the change.
Renee
Yes very different..but i like it. It is very neat!
Alex
Gorgeous shot. Fantastic colors. Very artistic.
When photography really becomes art!
Congratulations!!!
Chris
Trippy. So cool. That is very interesting. Feels like the underworld.
mark
it’s very interesting but is it a great photo?
Kirk Jordan
To Mark: “Great” is a word with multiple meanings. This is not a photo of a grand or “weighty” thing, but it is presented with superior skill. Beyond that, this certainly is a wonderful photo, as wonder occurs both on the grand scale and on the small. In as much as Yangchen Lin has shown us an amazing and seldom seen part of our Earth, it certainly deserves to be here. I am always pleased when the editors give us a wide range of photos to enjoy.
ollie
heh “no photoshop”, I like that. It’s a very good shot. The bottom of that particular mushroom in the top left is very cool. Just wondering, what do they look like without the 4 minute exposure? Could i be walking in the woods and see them glowing like that?
Sue Gagnon
Excellent-ly compelling and intriguing photograph. Very interesting, and simply neat.
mark
To each his own Kirk. Does every comment on this site have to be unreserved praise. To me it is an extremely interesting subject but I do not think it is a particularly good photograph. Purely as an image it does nothing for me, the only value lies in the fact that we are looking at bioluminescent mushrooms. But that is just my opinion and it isn’t worth much. I think the rest of Yangchen’s site is fantastic by the way.
mike
Very cool.
Su
I like this, never seen anything like this before.
Renee
such great color!
Deborah Flowers
Very interesting and yes, to me a great capture! It’s art!
Yangchen Lin
Very sorry I only just came across this page realising it had been commented on since 3 years back! It makes me happy that most people saw and went away admiring the mushrooms rather than spend that time worrying about the photo’s technical and artistic shortfalls. This photo was so gratifying because of the challenges in manoeuvring the camera into ground level in thick jungle and having to use such long exposures plus equally long and excruciating dark-frame subtractions. Luminous mushrooms are usually 30-second shutters in my area, but these ones were glowing extremely weakly. You wouldn’t have spotted them if you were walking in anything other than total darkness with your light turned off, which was what I did. I have since taken another photo which I deem better, with a mind-numbing 15-minute exposure + another 15 minutes’ dark-frame subtraction, the colour again originating wholly and naturally from the mushrooms, with superb noise control from the D3 this time:
http://yangchen.smugmug.com/Photography/Natural-history/8619746_qXmwY#568628457_TSQxx-A-LB
happy shooting!