Agorastos Papatsanis's Image

Agorastos Papatsanis (Greece) composes a fairy tale scene in the forests of Mount Olympus.

Agorastos wanted to create a magical scene, capturing these fungi in a fairy-tale setting. He waited for the sunshine to filter through the trees and light the water in the background, and then used a wide-angle lens and flashes to highlight the labyrinthine forms of the morels.
Fruiting for only a few days each spring and very difficult to cultivate, morels are regarded as gastronomic treasures in many parts of the world. However, in some forests, like this one in Greece, they flourish naturally.

Various species of morels are found throughout northern temperate regions. They are typically characterised by their distinctive honeycomb caps, which has pits within which spores are produced. Some morel species fruit prolifically after forest fires, whereas others are associated with particular trees, both evergreen and deciduous.

Roz Kidman Cox, Chair of the judging panel, writer and editor said, 'The morels are the stars of this photo, their strange spore-bearing honeycomb heads emerging out of the old leaf litter, but the magic comes from catching the moment when the Sun illuminates the backdrop of pool and waterfall and highlights the yellow-green of new spring growth'.