Mushrooms & Friends 1

Mushrooms & Friends is Phyllis Ma's first self-published zine, built from mushrooms sourced at a Brooklyn organic mushroom farm and foraged in the forests of upstate New York. Ma photographs each specimen close and lit in saturated color, turning ordinary fungi into small, staged tableaux.

The 32-page booklet runs full-color photos on glossy stock, soft cover, staple-bound, at 8.5 by 11 inches. Ma released it in September 2019, printed in New York City, in an edition without the pandemic backstory that would shape the later volumes in the series.

Ma, a Brooklyn-based photographer working across still life and food photography, has continued Mushrooms & Friends as an ongoing series; this first volume set the visual approach, mushroom as subject and prop at once, that the sequels expand on.