To think any one of these lifeforms exists in our galaxy, let alone on our planet, simply boggles the mind. Photographer Steve Axford lives and works in the Northern Rivers area of New South Wales in Australia where he spends his time documenting the living world around him, often traveling to remote locations to seek out rare animals, plants, and even people. But it’s his work tracking down some of the world’s strangest and brilliantly diverse mushrooms and other fungi that has resulted in an audience of online followers who stalk his work on Flickr and SmugMug to see what he’s captured next.
Axford shares via email that most of the mushrooms seen here were photographed around his home and are sub-tropical fungi, but many were also taken in Victoria and Tasmania and are classified as temperate fungi. The temperate fungi are well-known and documented, but the tropical species are much less known and some may have never been photographed before. Mushrooms like the Hairy Mycena and the blue leratiomyces have most likely never been found on the Australian mainland before, and have certainly never been photographed in an artistic way as you’re seeing here.
It was painfully difficult not to include more of Axford’s photography here, so I urge you to explorefurther. All photos courtesy the photographer. (via Awkward Situationist)
Panus fasciatus
Leratiomyces sp. / Found in Booyong Reserve, Booyong, NSW
Plant roots are vital components of the earth's ecosystem. They are necessary for all plant growth, including the production of food and nutrients for humans and many other organisms. However, as root systems are out off sight, their beauty and importance often go unnoticed. Exposed: The Secret Life of Roots showcases the presence and importance of roots through visually stunning root representations using the work of agricultural ecologist Dr. Jerry Glover, sculptor Steve Tobin, and photographer Jim Richardson.
Photography and Sculpture
Jim Richardson is a photographer for the National Geographic Society. His photographs in this exhibits capture the disparity in the aboveground and belowground biomass of plants. His series on soil profiles, hung in the Classroom and National Garden (spring through fall), highlight striking differences in global soils and the human struggle to grow food.
Steve Tobin is a celebrated sculptor who specializes in nature-inspired works. Two of his pieces on display spring through fall on the U.S. Botanic Garden grounds, Romeo and Juliet, are bronze casts of tree roots washed out from a riverbank. The other two sculptures are from his Steelroot series.
Roots Exposed
Agricultural ecologist Dr. Jerry Glover studies the importance of healthy soils and their relationship to plants. While working at The Land Institute in Salina, Kansas, he helped develop a method of growing and preserving plants.
Plants are grown in "root tubes," 10-foot sections of 12-inch diameter PVC pipe containing a special baked clay material. After removal from the tubes, plants are soaked in a glycerin and water solution to prevent them from rotting. See these preserved plants in the East Gallery.
A bevy of prairie plants and their roots hang at the U.S. Botanic Garden. Photo by Nsikan Akpan
Up-close and personal with a sorghum root. Photo by Nsikan Akpan.
WiliWili (Erythrina sandwicensis) root at the U.S. Botanic Garden. Photo by Nsikan Akpan
International Year of Soils
Soils are layers of minerals and organic matter that are critically connected to a diverse array of organisms from worms to bacteria. They are the foundation for much of life on Earth and are a crucial component of global nutrient and water cycling. Soils are also fragile and largely non-renewable, and thus their conservation is extremely important. Learn more about soils in the National Garden spring through fall.
Terrace Plantings
The raised beds on the Conservatory Terrace feature living displays of plants found throughoutExposed: The Secret Life of Roots. Highlights include "root" crops (plants grown for their underground roots, leaves, and stems) and native prairie plants. Explore both the dried and live versions (spring through fall) of these prairie plants throughout the Conservatory Terrace and East Gallery.
Plant roots play a vital role for life on earth. They absorb water and nutrients to feed plants, which feed animals and humans, and they anchor soil to prevent erosion. The U.S. Botanic Garden in Washington pays tribute with a new exhibit called “Exposed.” VOA’s Rosanne Skirble digs in for a closer look at what’s going on underground.
In a stunning collaboration with University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Sydney, award-winning Australian photographer Tamara Dean set out to capture photos of scientists in their natural habitats.
From stargazing in Indigenous communities to climbing rugged hillsides in search of tiny animals, the photography series Wild Researchers challenges the seriously overdone stereotype of nerdy lab folk. (Not to even mention the frustrating 'mad scientist with goggles' trope. Seriously.)
Instead, through the eyes of the photographer we get a chance to hang out with scientists as they truly are, in the real environment where they gather samples, collect data, and ponder the mysteries of our planet and beyond.
"I think a lot of the images that you tend to see are of researchers in a lab, or in a lab coat - in a particular way that we've been taught to perceive them," said Dean. "So the idea of taking these researchers out into the area that they work in was a really exciting way for me of tapping into how they fit into the big story of them within the world."
The photos, done in the photographer's characteristic painterly style, also let us engage with the actual research, reminding us science is not all about dry numbers and publishing papers. "Imagination: it’s not the first word usually associated with research – with science itself – but it’s a vital one," writes author Ashely Hay in an essay included in the exhibition catalogue.
Below are some of our favourite images, posted with permission from UNSW. To see the whole exhibition, head over to their website.
The toxin terminators: Mike Manefield, Matthew Lee, Robert Barnes – Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences.
Stargazer: Duane Hamacher – Nura Gili Academic Programs Unit
The possum whisperer: Hayley Bates – Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences
Heat stress: Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick – Climate Change Research Centre
Subterranean sleuth: Katie Coleborn – Connected Waters Initiative Research Centre
The urbanist: Scott Hawken – Smart Cities Research Cluster
A montage of a dozen types of Echinopsis cactus flowers blooming. And wilting. And just generally showing off their mind-blowing colors. My favorite cactus flowerings from the 2014 blooming season.
Echinopsis cactus flowers bloom overnight and the flowers last for only a day. Actually, the flowers are at their peak beauty for an hour or two at the most. That's what turned me from a cactus enthusiast into a cactus photographer ... the desire to try to preserve some aspect of their freaky beauty. Prior to becoming an Echinopsis addict a few years back, I had never owned a DSLR or image/video editing software.
The cacti shown in this video come from my collection. The evening when it looks like a plant's flowers are about to bloom, I bring it indoors to image. Most of the clips in this montage show approximately 8 hours of change as the flowers open and bloom. A little more than halfway through the montage, there's a series of three clips showing different views of a 24-hour period in the life of a yellow-flowered 'Daydream' plant. Six flowers that opened the night before I started filming wilt to nothingness and another 4 flowers grow dramatically and then open. This series of 'Daydream' clips is followed by another three showing other types of flowers wilting. These additional wilting clips are also taken over a daylong period.
The question I'm asked most often about my cactus flower still images and timelapses is whether I've "Photoshopped" them, that is, have I used editing software to juice things up and create the flowers' intense colors. I do, of course, use Photoshop and Lightroom and other editing software. But not in the way most suspect. Rather than using these tools to overstate reality, I actually use them to reduce the intensity of the colors my camera captures. I have reduced the color saturation in every timelapse clip in this video by a minimum of 10% and some ('Yes', 'Cabaret' and 'Antimatter') by 30% or more in order to have something that wasn't just completely blown out.
I hope you enjoy "Freaky Flowers" and invite you to visit www.echinopsisfreak.com where you'll learn more than you ever wanted to know about these cacti and also be able to reach me via a contact page should you wish.
The 2015 blooming season is just about to start now that April approaches and I hope to be posting new timelapses soon here at Vimeo.
Take a look at these beautiful images of animals rearing their young in
the wild. Each photo captured the beauty of the unbreakable bond between
a parent and their child. If you’re a parent, you’ll surely appreciate
this.
