This month’s webinar features renowned slime mould photographer Steve Young. The webinars are free for paid Fungimap members (click here if you would like to join), while non-members are requested to make a donation towards running costs. Each webinar must be booked in separately via TryBooking (use link below). The webinars are held over Zoom, and Zoom links will be sent out on the day.
Slime Moulds – Revealing their magic through the lens
Wednesday 21 April 2021
7.00pm – 8.00pm (AEST-Melbourne time)
Speaker: Steve Young
Bookings here
The world of Slime Moulds is a lesser known one, due to their incredibly small size generally being overlooked and rarely observed by passersby. Whilst their habitat is most often associated with forest environments, they commonly occur in residential settings as well, but still remain a little observed field of study. In recent times there is a growing number of people involved in recording and photographing Myxomycetes. As such there is a growing interest in employing sophisticated techniques to do this and the specialists are achieving amazing results. Many species are spectacularly beautiful and it is only through patience and perseverance that this beauty can be brought to the general public. This is a potted chronology of Steve’s journey of trial and error, and problem solving that has ultimately yielded visually pleasing results as well as excellent photographic renditions of scientific value.
Steve Young is a retired Commercial Photographer living in what he refers to as ‘paradise’ in Coffs Harbour. His first three decades of employment were spent in Corporate life, based in Melbourne active both nationally and internationally in middle and senior management roles. The last four years of this time he also completed an Advanced Diploma of Commercial Photography at the pre-eminent Photography Studies College in Melbourne, before relocating to Coffs Harbour to open a small Commercial Photography business. In his words this was to ‘relax and do something less meaningful’. Enjoying the best of both worlds, this continued for another decade before he decided to relax even more and somewhat retire. With a thirst for intellectual stimulation he gravitated towards his local rainforests to photograph fungi, leading him to his current passion for all things Slime Mould. Along this journey in recent times he has also been volunteering time at the Eromanga Natural History Museum in South West QLD. He has now been assigned an ‘Honorary Micro-fossil Processing Technician’ role undertaking work involved in the discovery, photography and cataloguing of new micro-fossils for the Museums’ collection.
His Slime Mould photography in particular is gaining interest with recent inclusions of his work in Sarah Lloyd’s ‘Where the Slime Moulds Creep Edition 3’, Australian Geographic Magazine March 2021, CSIRO’s The Secretive Slime Mould publication 2021, and the soon to be released expanded and second edition of Steven Stephenson’s 2017 book on Myxomycetes.