Please try to include photos of the following in your plant observations: Flowers/fruits/buds when present A photo of the entire plant. If it’s mixed with other plants, try to get as much as you can in one photo to give a sense of how it holds itself up. Whole, mature leaves (for shape and textur…

Details of the flower (profile), as mentioned here for instance.

I would add to that take note of what looks typical of the plant/bush/flower and photograph the typical rather tan the atypical. For terrestrial orchids the atypical can be added as a separate observation, as it may well be a hybrid or another but similar species. For Australian orchids, I would re…

in case that there is a plant that is very atypical, it in my opinion it make sense to add it as a separate observation - this might later turn out to be one of several things: show variability (which is also interesting scientifically), if a plant is much smaller or bigger than the rest of the po…

[image] gerrit_oehm: in case that there is a plant that is very atypical, It is quite common with Australian terrestrial orchids to have atypical plants in a population and a mixed population of different species as well as hybrids. Quite frustrating at times!

This is a great, concise tutorial applicable to the majority of plants that people photograph for iNat. For particular families, there might be one or two things I would add, but people following these guidelines will create observations that are much easier to identify than the average. The main a…

Thanks everyone. As @orchidrose implies, the ideal photos would illustrate each aspect of the best local key available. But most observations on iNaturalist are super casual. Many photographers aren’t interested in finding the right key or learning how to use it. I don’t see a way to edit my pos…

I would only add: avoid to photograph an erect plant from above. Otherwise just a small part will be on focus and the rest will be blurry. If you can, kneel and photograph the plant side-on, maybe focusing on the ground near its base.

[image] GlenKPeterson: I don’t see a way to edit my post, but if I could, I would add On your own comment you can click edit (the pencil) at the bottom. Please for flowers - start with 2 views - face and profile - or petals above and bracts below. One picture is fine for a photography site b…

Depends upon the group of the plant. In particular the photographic plan for accurately capturing non-vascular plant like bryophytes needs to be completely different than a plan for traditional, vascular or flowering plants.

How to photograph a plant

Nature Talk

orchidrose June 10, 2024, 2:53am 4

Forgot to add, scale cards, particularly those that have both ruler and colour scale. are also useful.

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/199876569

Topic		Replies	Views
Identifiers, what parts of organisms are helpful for identification? Nature Talk question	18	2074	June 22, 2023
Identifiers - what do you ID, and how can observers make it easier to do so? General	69	5705	June 29, 2020
Photographing for optimum ID Tutorials	16	2902	August 24, 2025
Useful things to photograph/document Nature Talk	19	1139	August 30, 2022
Photo taking recommendations by taxon? General	47	9278	August 20, 2020

How to photograph a plant

Related topics