There's a certain mystique to mushroom hunting, due in part to its questionable legal status, impressive learning curve and loose association with psychedelics and drug culture. There's also the thrill of discovering something valuable in the middle of the woods.
An old feature in the San Francisco Chronicle describes the "Porcini Brothers," dressed in bulky wool sweaters and wool caps, delivering 32 pounds of shrooms to the back door of Chez Panisse, one of the Bay Area's most famous restaurants. Like a secretive drug deal, the brothers pocket $640 for the mushrooms, which will be used that night in a $75 set meal. They refuse to tell the reporter where they gather their take, for fear their stash will be raided. The chefs don't ask because they don't want to know.
It's an atmosphere of intrigue that Osma Harvilahti's photos of mushroom hunting capture for an editorial feature in Wilder Quarterly. Like a good novelist or filmmaker, however, Harvilahti transports viewers to a make-believe world that still feels real.
"With my work I don't really create stories, I create visual narratives," says Harvilahti, who's based in Helsinki, Finland.
The photos are a great example of how to do editorial right. Each one is interesting on its own and they all provide a variety of textures and negative space for layout designers to work with. They're cohesively evocative without being specific. Mushrooms feel present even in the photos where there are none.
The reason wild mushrooms command such a high price is because many of our favorites, like the boletes and chanterelles, refuse to be domesticated and can only be found seasonally in the wild. (The Pacific Northwest is known to be a particularly fertile spot.) Some varieties sell for up to $20 or more per pound and, like some of the pot growers in Northern California, mushroom hunters have been known to protect their territory with guns. You also have to know what you're doing because if you pick and eat the wrong mushroom, it could kill you.
For the photos, Harvilahti and his sister wandered around the forest near their family's cabin outside of Helsinki. Shot with a medium-format film camera, Harvilahti says the photos are reflective of his overall style as a photographer. Unlike photojournalists who are always looking for moments, he says his photography hinges on smaller things like light, color and mood. It's a unique style that takes some chances, but has garnered him a lot of success. A string of editorial and commercial clients (including Nokia) have all hired him because they like his unique aesthetic and approach.
"I shoot what matters to me and I believe this is the only way I can work," he says.
