Funga Obscura
photo journeys among fungi
by Alison Pouliot
Reviewed March 2025
Referencing the camera obscura of times past, Funga Obscura is an ingeniously apt title for Alison Pouliot’s latest book.
Through the dual lenses of science and art; combining her deep knowledge and love of fungi with the skilled eye of a sensitive photographer, Alison brings these extraordinary, weird and wonderful life forms out of obscurity and onto the page.
Though scaffolded with informative and thought-provoking text, it is the captivating, dramatic photographic images which are the hero of this book. More coffee table book than field guide, the text nevertheless takes us on a journey of discovery, gleaned from years of fungal foraying and research across both northern and southern hemispheres.
The evocative images were all taken in situ in natural light, so that we can almost feel the quiet stillness and smell the damp muskiness of their surroundings. They are an invitation to slow down: to be drawn down to the forest floor and to take time to look more closely…to pause and ponder…to be astounded at the intriguing beauty of diverse form and function, and to wonder about fungal relationships within the web of life…and our relationships with them, now and into the future.
And so Alison’s newly- published work is many things: a gallery of exquisite photographic artworks; a celebration of the diversity, eccentricity, beauty and resilience of fungi; a meditation on relationships between all living things, and an invitation to wonder about our own place in the natural world.
by Jeanette Miller
