LEON
TAYLOR
MUSHROOM MAGIC
Leon is a natural light and landscape photographer in the south east of England. He uses a
broad range of camera-types and techniques to make photographs including large format film,
pinholes and digital devices. He has been a regular contributor to Black and White Photography
magazine and has work used on ILFORD Photo packaging and promo materials, as well as in
private collections. For Leon, photography is a metaphor for quiet contemplation of the world
around him, and his aim is to reflect this in the images he makes.
The realisation that death was a high possibility following consciousness (psilocybin, ergot alkaloids, amanitas) or cause
any error in my foraging of wild mushrooms meant that any a long and painful death. This adds to their mysticism and
hunger to eat them diminished quickly in me, but a respect perhaps explains why they regularly feature in the darker
and interest in them grew. They have a life of liminality. They corners of northern European folklore and faerie tales.
are neither plant nor animal, having a visible body only for a
short period each year, the rest of the time existing as a vast These pictures are from a larger series of portraits showing
subterranean networks of mycelium. the fruiting body of the mycelium in its natural state. Not
picked, or removed, just captured in light as it was found
They sometimes have a symbiotic relationship with the life on the forest floor. I see personality in each, and love the
around them, feeding on matter that is no longer alive and ambiguity that exists; could this be a tasty treat or a deathly
assisting in the biological equilibrium of forest floor. They threat? I’m certainly not willing to find out!
exist on the edge of light and life with the power to have
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pride of place on a Michelin starred restaurant dish, or cure You can contact Leon at [email protected]
ills (erogtine-based medications for example), to change All images in this article (c) Leon Taylor