Dave in an endangered rainforest the
hunt is on for elusive species hidden in
leaf litter and rotting logs one of the
world's best-known funghi photographers
is at work I gradually became fascinated
with fungus because really they're just
so cool you find them and these just
wonderful colors and wonderful shapes
and they're so transitory Stephen Axford
first became interested in this artform
ten years ago his stunning images of
mushrooms have captivated millions of
people all over the world and especially
a passionate funghi scientist in
Melbourne funghi a mega diverse there's
a million species at least on the planet
maybe a lot more
most of which haven't been cataloged and
described and so there's a lot of basic
discovery to be done but there's also a
lot of misunderstanding about fungi and
so what Steve's doing in by capturing
the fungi in the field he's alerting
people to the fact that there are these
funny out there in the forest and he's
also showing them in nature doing their
stuff so finally of breaking down wood
they're forming symbiotic partnerships
with trees and so he's helping people
value what we're doing I know people who
have traveled halfway across the world
just to find one I think one of the
secrets to Axford success is where he
lived towards this
the rainforests of the New South Wales
north coast are an international hotspot
for fungi yet very little is known about
the species of fungi that can be found
here
Axford is passionate about finding out
more isn't he cute it's a little blue
light bulb when I first started coming
out here virtually every time I came out
I'd find something that hadn't been
documented before and one of my
favorites was the blue truffle we call
it when Axford found this unusual
mushroom he sent specimens to dr. Tom
May at the herbarium in the Royal
Botanic Gardens in Melbourne well it was
completely new species that I'd never
seen before the color was just
extraordinary I never seen anything like
it
scientists who study fungi much as we
would like to be in the in the bush the
whole time we can't be out there all the
time collecting so all taxonomy to work
on fungi are relying on collections made
by field naturalists both recently and
in the past in the 19th century field
naturalist made huge contributions
collecting plants or as Australia for
people like Baron von Walla and really
for funghi worth dealing that age of
discovery it's still hundreds thousands
of species out there waiting to be
discovered
so anyone around Australia who spends a
bit of time the bush has a chance of
coming across things and finding new
species today's technology has given
Axford the tools to take this tradition
to a whole new level this is a shipping
container which Axford fondly calls his
Hungarian in it is a studio for doing
time lapses of fungi
well it all started with an ABC open
project
time lapse and I thought about doing
time-lapse of clouds and landscapes and
things like that but then I thought why
not hungers and I had a spare shower
which I thought the fungus would grow
quite well in so I could bring logs in
and put them in the shower and the
fungus would grow and I could take
time-lapse and things have just grown
from there I was just blown away when I
saw the time lapses initially because
funghi are very static it's quite hard
to make a funky exciting apart from the
color and the form so as soon as I saw
that time lapse of the fungus growing up
shriveling back down again tar needle
insects wandering along the running up
taking a nibble coming back down again
if just see it in the field you don't
notice that
and also because he's so close in it you
know there's a tiny tiny funding in the
insects that just even even my neuter
it's like it's all blown up there with
movement so it's a completely new way of
seeing fungi in nature fungi
unlike punch thrive in the darkness of
the forest floor then the BBC came
calling
Axford received an invitation from the
producers of Planet Earth to to provide
the fungi time-lapses for their new
David Attenborough documentary I never
would have imagined that my photography
would end up on a series that is so
high-profile but this one as he grows
becomes luminous and they have David
Attenborough with the voice-over on
you
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