<center><h1>My First Post About Mushrooms</h1></center>

Going back to my early ~~Steem~~ days to find my first Fungi inspired post... I had to go all the way to the very beginning in September 2017. After my introduction post, my second and third posts were of mushrooms! Technically, my first post on shrooms was called [Swedish Sunday.](https://peakd.com/dtube/@castleberry/rhhx764u) It's a Youtube video montage of many photographs i took put to the music of Koopa Castle (OC Remix) the Super Mario World Music Extended. It runs about 14 minutes and has a lot of shots i had collected in the course of time i had been in Sweden before i found out about ~~Steem~~.

I love photography and taking macro shots of Mushrooms was something i found a great amount of joy in for many reasons. I have since come back to my native land of Texas, and finding mushrooms in my area is much more difficult than in the beautiful Swedish countrysides and forests. I look forward to returning there soon.

https://images.hive.blog/0x0/http://image.ibb.co/kXSukm/Heart1.jpg

I got so excited about finding a place that actually valued my content and wanted me to share, as opposed to Facebook and other social media at the time, that i really had a lot of my posts on the chain photography and mushroom oriented. I even created a tag back in the early days #FungusAmongUs 

I saw a post from @ewkaw who was participating in the Relay and decided this would be a great opportunity for me to make my first FungiLovers post too. So, i hope you like my golden oldie below.

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<center><h1>Macro Mushrooms</h1><h2>Macro Photography Daily Contest Entry</h2></center>
<p>I recently went on a bike ride here in the Southern Swedish countryside.  I decided to take my camera with me.  I took some photos of the indigenous Mushrooms I came across.  I am really falling in love with the diversity of mosses, stones, and trees... but especially the Mushrooms!  Let's just say we don't have much of this back in the part of Texas I am from.  I decided to share a few of the photos with you and just make this post my entry into the daily contest.  All of my photos are taken with a Canon Powershot SD1100 IS point and shoot 8 mega pixel camera.
<center><b>Contest Every #macrophotography Thursday </b> <br>Link for this contest and others at the bottom of this post.</center><hr>
<i>I really like how this blade grass is in focus and the contrast between the white mushroom and the dark sky blue!</i>
<img src="https://image.ibb.co/bG6stw/IMG_0703.jpg" alt="Blue Sky & Green Grass" border="0" />
<hr><i>This photo reminds me of a scene from Super Mario Bros.  I can picture a mini Mario jumping from one cap to another and even hear the sound effects too!</i>
<img src="https://image.ibb.co/cHEFfb/IMG_0671.jpg" alt="Mario's Row" border="0">
<hr><i>I really like the perspective and the flattened out fan of the gills on this mushroom. I am really drawn to the Ring or Annulus around the bottom... it looks like this mushroom ripped out of it's little ball!</i>
<img src="https://image.ibb.co/b9vMLb/IMG_0755.jpg" alt="Flat Fan" border="0" />
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<i>This is one of my all time personal favorite photos I have ever taken.  I absolutely LOVE the perspective and the angle of the line of sight peering into the underside of the canopy.  I have seen this picture in my head since I was a kid... and I was truly happy that this time <b>LIFE</b> actually <b>IMITATED ART!</b></i>
<img src="https://image.ibb.co/k8eO0b/IMG_0651.jpg" alt="Life Imitates Art" border="0" />
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<i>I really like the symmetry in this mushroom as well as how the texture adds a feeling of motion or movement.  The shadowing in the gill area of the bite or damage adds some nice contrast and depth of field.</i>
<img src="https://image.ibb.co/fMJY0b/IMG_0684.jpg" alt="ToadSkin" border="0" />
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<i>My favorite part of these mushrooms is probably the fact they are growing out of some moss that was growing on top of a large stone.  The caps are pretty silky looking and they make the perfect little "Umbrella" caps!</i>
<img src="https://image.ibb.co/hqJNtw/IMG_0582.jpg" alt="Umbrella Caps" border="0" />
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<p>I hope you enjoyed the photos!  I have so many more to share, it was truly difficult to pick just a couple to feature.  I don't want to eat up anyone's data... so I may post a few posts like this from time to time rather than one giant post.  I will try to share some of the Macro shots I take on each excursion.  I generally take so many photos each round, it's much easier for me to just make a montage YouTube video.  I have a couple already posted from D-tube further down my Blog if you care to check them out.  Thanks for stopping by and taking the time to check out some of my art. Steem On!  <br><hr><center>
  <i><b>For More Information on the Daily Photo Contests Each Week & How To Enter please check out the link below!</b></i><br><sub>I went ahead and chose not to include the link to the contest just in case you were wondering! =)</sub>
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It's been a long journey on the platform and much of it has been mushroom and photography centered. I think that my best is yet to come. Now, for the relay handoff... 

So, if they are willing to take the relay and go back to their first mushroom post, i would like to see @gidlark's Fungi Photography. I saw some in the Photography Lover's community and would like to see some more. Thanks for taking the time to read and check out this post! 

<center>https://media.giphy.com/media/hcwIm2NdTYhva/giphy.gif</center>