Photography
2026 competition winners and runners up
Up to 11 years old
Winner -
Albert Peachey. Age 9
Magpie Inkcap
Judge's Notes: A lovely complete image whose composition shows the subject in its natural environment, telling the story of where this fungus can be found. Not a very common species and tricky to catch in good condition. Well done
Runner up -
Romy Love. Age 11
Common Puffball
Runner up -
Kaede Dohi. Age 7
Orange and spotty
Judge's Notes: A nicely captured image with interesting compositional shape. Well-focused detail and capturing the fly in the image brings an extra touch of life, story and movement to the image
Judge's Notes: A nice clean and chrisp image showing the detail common to this chosen species. A mix of Autumn colours - A great specimen in a species that is food to a wide variety of organisms and rare to find in such good condition
12-17 years old
Winner -
Alex Press. Age 17
Autumn Bleached
Judge's Notes: A Lovely high-impact image with vibrant colours. A great picture of an uncommon subject matter that many photographers would have walked past. Very well executed.
Runner up -
Justin Hird. Age 17
Forest Lanterns
Judge's Notes: Creative use of light and background bokeh set this image apart. Good choice of vantage point to show gills and a pleasing colour contrast.
Bokeh is the aesthetic quality of the blur in the out-of-focus areas of a photograph or video. It is not just the blur created using a shallow depth of field but rather the visual character and round gentle smoothness of the blur. The circular quality is caused by the diaphragm blades in cameras or in some cases a cut out shape in front of the lens. Longer focal lengths amplify the size of the blurred orbs and increasing the distance between the subject and the background whilst staying close to the subject can enhance the effect.
Compare all three images in the 12-17 years category. All three use a shallow depth of field creatively. Autumn Bleached has a beautifully soft, warm, smooth, rounded, gentle and creamy background bokeh. Forest Lanterns shows distinct circular bokeh to great effect, creating the feeling of being in a woodland without the distraction of all the trees. Fairy Warnings uses a more transitioned blur, blurring more as you move away from the focal point, bringing your eyes back to the detail. All three focus your attention on the subject of the photo, wonderfully and create very different atmospheres.
Runner up -
Niobe Cotes, Age 12
Fairy Warning
Judge's Notes: The unusual perspective on this image gives a new experience of familiar subject matter. Good sharp detail - and creative use of the depth of field to focus the eye on the detail and the story of the image
18 years and over - non-professional photographers
Winner -
Avijit Gori
Under the spore shower
Judge's Notes: This image has a whimsical feel through its composition and story. Stylistically impactful, colourful and enjoyable in equal parts. A good choice of image from what is undoubtedly a series of shots, capturing a special moment. Great use of backlighting showing sporulation and air currents. The curious snail adds value to the image, increasing the impact and expanding the viewers interest beyond the framed moment.
Runner up -
David Elder
Fly Agaric Under Beech
Judge's Notes: A vibrant, bright, impactful and quintessentially autumnal image. Showing the story of this common fungus in its environs with a great choice of colours. Creatively composed using depth of field and perspective. Well executed.
Runner up -
Ana Peiró Muñoz
Scarletina Bolete
Judge's Notes: An incredibly sharp image with great detail - lighting executed well without being overdone. Good depth of field. Exceptionally clean and simple composition of nice subjects.
Runner up -
H Watanabe - tadakino
Hidden World in a Moth's Coccoon
Judge's Notes: A highly unusual and very original - otherworldly view of this unique species from Japan. Architectural and intriguing! - Inspiring all our judges to want to find out more about the fungal subject.
Hundreds of minute, bright orange fungal fruiting bodies, provisionally identified as Cocoonihabitus sp., were growing on the cocoon of the Japanese giant silkworm moth (Saturnia japonica). This remarkable miniature world reveals how fungi can colonise and flourish on the silk structures created by insects.
18 years and over - professional photographers
Winner -
Edward Ley Ortiz
Xylarias
Judge's Notes: An otherworldly image. Great use of perspective to create the illusion of the subject reaching for the screen. The view of glutination is uncommon and very well managed, especially to avoid capturing the photographer or lighting in reflections. Well lit and exposed. Great detail on the subject and great selection of the depth of field to focus the attention on the main subject without losing the overall effect.
Runner up -
Justin Long
Cat got your tongue?
(The Cat's Tongue Fungus, Pseudohydnum gelatinosum)
Judge's Notes: An incredibly striking abstract; the dark background and lighting create a unique perspective on the subject matter. Very sharp, Beautiful textures that stay with the viewer and warrant multiple views; colouring and detailing make this an impactful and enjoyable study of an uncommon species
Runner up -
Natalia Kazmierczak
Forest Treasures
Judge's Notes: A lovely atmospheric image, evoking stories and emotion. Great compositional use of leading lines and natural light open up the story contained in the image to expansion and interpretation. The stark contrast in the colour of the fungal subject and the background foliage draws the eye through the picture beautifully, creating the desire to travel the path past the subject into the light. Very evocative!
Honourable Mentions
Honourable Mention
The Devil's in the Detail
Sarah Shuttleworth
Honourable Mention
Alone in the woods
Thomas Roberts
Honourable Mention
Bay Bolete Pair
Jeremy Lintott
Competition Judges 2026
A huge thank you to our panel of judges for 2026.
This year was incredibly difficult to judge, with just under 650 images across the four categories. We were all hugely impressed with the calibre of all our fungal photographers and loved the diversity of images. We hope that you will join us again next year!
Alfred
Alfred Drummond Herdman uses macro photography and time-lapse to observe smaller, often-overlooked fungi growing in similarly overlooked places— such as herbivore dung! There is remarkable beauty hiding in plain sight, but often on a scale smaller than we are used to. Slowing down, looking closely and using the amazing technology available to us allows us to peak in to this hidden world of fungi.
As well as documenting fungi, I'm very interested taxonomy and trying to better understand the relationships between certain groups of fungi, as well as searching for undiscovered species. Check out Alfred's amazing time-lapse on Instagram at @scottish.fungi
Guy
Guy Edwardes has been a professional landscape, nature and travel photographer for over twenty five years. His career began straight after graduating with a Degree in Photography from Salisbury College (Now Wiltshire College) in England, following various courses studying nature conservation.
Guy's images are marketed by several leading photographic agencies including Nature Picture Library and AWL. Guy also manage a library of over 250,000 images from his own office.
Guy's work has been published worldwide with clients that include: Canon, Amateur Photographer, Outdoor Photography, Photo Plus, Dorset Life, Archant Life publications, Telegraph, Guardian, The Reader's Digest, AA Publishing, The Ordnance Survey and many card and calendar publishers around the world. He has published two successful books on photography technique with David & Charles; 100 Ways to Take Better Landscape Photographs (2005) and 100 Ways to Take Better Nature and Wildlife Photographs (2009). Check out Guy's Fungi Portfolio
Max
Max Mudie is a multidisciplinary artist, founder of All Things Fungi and co-founder of All Things Fungi Festival. With a passion for exploring the often-overlooked world of fungi and slime mould, Max uses photography to reveal the extraordinary beauty and complexity of the natural world, from microscopic details to the fascinating forms found on the forest floor. Max is also the recipient of the British Mycological Society’s Fungal Outreach Award.
‘I don’t create content, I document my obsession’
Zita
Zita Milwain is a fungi and nature enthusiast, and she loves nothing more than sharing how amazing fungi are with close friends and family, and new acquaintances. As a child, she discovered she was allergic to eating cultivated mushrooms (Agaricus bisporus) (Many people are surprised to find out that these mushrooms, which we know as chestnut, portobello and button, are all the same species but at different states of maturity.)
Zita always found fungi intriguing and thought she couldn’t possibly be allergic to all species! Thankfully her fascination proved she was right: she has attended and supported experts on many fungal forays, and always looks forward to going on fungal adventures to discover more, and find species she hasn’t yet seen first-hand.