Name: Barry Webb
Picture title: Slime Moulds on Parade
Category: Plants & Fungi
Nationality: British
Occupation: Gardener / Photographer

Barry says:
‘This image is a stack of 34 focus bracketed images. It was taken in February 2020 in a mixed woodland in Buckinghamshire, UK. It shows a line of 2.5mm high, fruiting bodies of the slime mould Metatrichia floriformis growing on a decaying beech trunk.

I always use a x10 loupe with built-in LEDs to examine slime moulds and to help me pick out the optimal composition. Initially, I liked this group because it showed different stages in their development. But when I looked through the magnifier, I noticed that the fruiting bodies resembled people standing in a line – the holes in the stems looked like little legs!’

Technical information:
Olympus  OMD EM1 mk 11
Zuiko 60mm macro
ISO 200
f/3.5
1/15 sec
Accessories: Gitzo Explorer tripod, 16mm Kenko extension tube, Olympus cable release.
Post processing: Zerene Stacker was used to stack the 34 focus bracketed images. Lightroom was used for minor adjustments and to crop the image to a 16x9 format.

Website: barrywebbimages.co.uk
Instagram: barrywebbimages