Girolle gills

The plumber came early this morning to start fixing the leak in the ceiling. He had to cut a big square out of the ceiling to access the pipes, and now that he can see what the problem is he is able to order the new pipe.

It was a misty start to the day but by the time I took Xena out it was sunny and bright. I saw so many fungi again and I liked the tiny details in the gills of this fallen girolle. So complex and neat!

I enjoy the competitions we have at our camera club as we usually get a good external judge who does a very interesting critique - some are less good than others but I find you can usually learn so much from them. At our competition last night the judge was quite picky on the nature images, but I can see the point that just because a photo is of an animal that is uncommon - lion, elephant, etc. - it does not necessarily make it a good image. The animals have to be doing something to tell us about their habitat, behaviour, feeding etc to be interesting - an image of a  magnificent lion just standing in the sunlight no longer scores well just because its an unusual mammal. A beautiful, sharp image of a baby owl in flight scored badly last night as the judge said it's wings were in the wrong position and it was framed too tightly. The owl was superbly photographed, all the details could be seen and the eyes were looking directly at the camera, but I suppose the photographer should wait to get the wings in the right position...People often think because something is cute and fluffy it's a great picture but it often is not. I seldom enter my nature images for this reason as while I like them I know they do not make a great image.