MUSHROOMS

….. “I looked for them so low that I could feel the breath of the Earth.
Stretched to their height I lost myself in the enchantment of this arcane Kingdom “

Mushroom for me is an important story, started in my childhood when it happened again with my parents in the woods. In the green and in the silence of the Dolomite spruce, in addition to the passion for research and the collection of mushrooms, the foundations are created for my naturalistic vocation and love for nature.

But despite being deeply fascinated, in many years of nature photography I have never photographed a mushroom, a sort of taboo that lasted until recently.
I’ve often wondered why. What relationship do we have with mushrooms?
In the woods the mushrooms seem to grow only to be harvested if “good” or trampled if “crazy” and in the common sense it is difficult to dissociate the image of a porcino from that of a risotto or tacks from a steaming polenta. I myself struggled a lot in replacing the trash with the camera.
Paradoxically, what everyone calls mushrooms in reality they are called carpophores and are only a kind of fruit (fruiting body) of the true mushroom that instead develops underground (mycelium).
Mushrooms are a complex and elusive group of living organisms grouped in the Fungi Kingdom, independent of plants and animals, contrary to what many still believe. Classifying them is very difficult, a prerogative limited to a few mycologists who often have to resort to microscopy. For the common people, except for a limited number of species, the recognition attempted by consulting some books is generally not very effective, too many species and too small and sometimes misleading morphological differences.

Finally in 2013 something started in me, the time to face this challenge had arrived. First of all, I joined the Mycological Group of Treviso, I needed to compare myself with real experts to build a scientifically based teaching grid. However, it was clear to me that the language I wanted to use was to be innovative, emotional and engaging, not oriented to recognition. A photographic approach in pictorial and poetic style, sometimes pushed to the abstract. I wanted images that told the absolute beauty that only a careful and close observation could grasp, a beauty that is revealed only by placing itself at their height.

And I thought of an artistic multivision as the most effective tool to tell this enchanted and arcane world. I traced a detailed storyboard and away, backpacker, without a basket, free from any stereotype.
For four years I have devoted much of my time to this topic. I have tried and photographed mushrooms in every season and in various environments, from the high mountain peatlands to the sands by the sea, in the coniferous and broadleaf woods, in the hilly meadows and even in the heart of the city in extremely anthropized environments.
An emotionally very engaging research shared up to a few months from its conclusion with my father now ninety years old and completed, in a sort of generational relay, with the collaboration of my daughter Valentina who with Paolo Nataletti has realized the multimedia computer part.
The multivision “The enchantment and the arcane. Journey into the secret Kingdom of mushrooms “was carried out on behalf of the Mycological Group P.A. Saccardo di Treviso and projected on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of its foundation in April 2016.
The mushrooms continue to fascinate me with their arcane and elusive beauty, so much so that I can not stop looking for them and photograph them.