Strange life forms

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As the exploration of space begins, and humans begin to travel to planets that are earthlike but still very different, especially genetically, one might expect reports to come home of strange lifeforms, unanticipated and way out of the norm. But ... what's normal anyway? These are tree fungi, and life forms don't come much more weird! The picture is an exercise in capturing depth of field -- this being the amount of the image that's in focus between the lens plane and infinity. The trick is this: the smaller the aperture you can get, the greater the depth of field you can achieve. Now, in low light conditions (like this: the glade was dim and green), to get a small aperture and keep the exposure right, you'll have a long shutter speed. If it's too long to hold the camera steady (preventing camera shake, which blurs the image), see if you can sit the camera on a level surface ... because you'll never have a tripod with you when you need one! Photo by Mel, 2008.