My father is an excellent amateur photographer. He has taken many photos of wild animals/plants that would be great for iNaturalist, all just kept on our PC. I was next to him when he took these photos (most of them are from family vacations in many different states, or just in our backyard). Would he have to create an account for iNaturalist to post these himself for them to be valid or would I be able to post them, because I saw them in person at the same time he did? I asked him and he is completely fine with me posting them if this is allowed. I would think it would be fine because we observed the same organism at the same time, but I just wanted to ask since I wasn’t the one who took the picture. I can provide more clarification if needed. Thanks!
(another question that goes with this… it’s fine to post old observations, right? Most of the pictures are 5-6 years old.)
That whole thread (that the quote is taken from) is worth a read, as it only has 17 replies, so it will only take you a few minutes to read through it.
The situation in the thread linked by @AdamWargon is a bit different, because the original poster was not present when the photos were taken.
In this case, you were there. If you have your father’s permission to use his photos I don’t see a problem. The idea is that iNaturalist is supposed to document your own encounters with nature; just because you didn’t happen to be the one holding the camera doesn’t mean that you did not experience it. So it is not so much “does it count for iNat” as it is a question of respecting the photographer’s right to control what happens to their artistic creations.
Yes, I agree feel free to post all of them you also saw under your own account. This isn’t a photography site, so it’s not about presenting your work as a photographer. Though to be clear you might add a note to the observation saying, e.g. photo used with permission of [your father’s name here].
You can post them, if you credit your father for the photography. However, sounds like there are a lot of photos. Probably you weren’t there for all of them. How about helping your father set up an account? (with his permission) He’ll need an e-mail address. You can administrate the account, if necessary, though he might consider it fun, after he sees it working. Just never, ever use an account your manage to ID observations you post on your own account, or visa versa. That would make the computer think there were two independent checks on the identification but that wouldn’t be true.
Posting these photos could be a nice winter project.
That’s not old! Last winter I went through some nearly 20-yr-old photos and posted them. I’ve seen other observations posted recently that date back to the 70s and 80s.
Thank you all for the quick and helpful replies! @sedgequeen I probably didn’t make it clear that there aren’t THAT many photos. I would only post the ones that I was there for. I haven’t compiled them into a folder yet but there’s definitely less than a hundred. I agree that posting the photos would be a nice winter project. My iNaturalist observation page is a ghost town right now, the last observations I made were 15 days ago… and they were of long-dead insects trapped in the living room windowsills. I was desperate.
@Vireya yeah I’ve definitely seen some observations like that, some black and white observations even. I just didn’t know if there was some rule I was unaware of with posting older observations, but now it’s all cleared up.
So, I’ve decided that I’ll post them under my account, but credit my father in the description, and he’s fine with it so I have his permission.
Yeah, the only problem I can see with this is making sure your dad is alright with the licensing you choose for the photos. By default, photos uploaded to iNat are available to anyone to use for any non-commercial purpose as long as they credit the photographer (I think. It’s something like that).
I do it all the time, I think some people are too strict about this. Why waste precious biodiversity data? I would even upload the ones for which you were not there, provided you have as accurate a date and location as possible (as good as your father could do if alone). Of course, that is if he gives you permission.
I wouldn’t want to mess up my observation map with observations by somebody else. I’ve posted some old photos that other people took, but I am there interacting with the animal. Date and place is sometimes not very accurate and while you can make a bigger accuracy circle you can’t give a bigger timespan - like a month. So I noted that in the description.
Haha no really though like this is the first winter where I’m interested in nature and it’s gonna be so boring. I know there are still things to observe like lichen and birds and stuff but neither of those I’m really interested in so I’m just patiently waiting for spring. Although in NYS, spring won’t come for like another half a year lol
Not absolute since it is mainly to prevent against fossilized organisms, but a good guideline to follow. Some people use 1900, some go into the 19th century, some people use 100 years ago, etc
I don’t see a problem with it. If you were together at the time it is as much your record as it is your dad’s even though he took the actual images. I do a lot of fieldwork, often together with my wife, who is not on iNaturalist. She usually photographs most of the ferns since that is her field of expertise. I usually photograph most of the other plants and other biodiversity. All records and data are collected by us both though. Afterwards, when I add data/records to iNat, I do often use my wife’s images when it concerns fern species we have seen,
