Somewhat frequently when identifying, I see an observation that is a picture of a picture: someone has taken a picture of either a computer/phone screen, a camera’s viewing screen, or a physical printed photo. Does this count as evidence of an organism? If it’s a camera, I usually give the benefit of the doubt because at least that shows that they may have taken the original photo, but on a computer screen how can I tell it’s not just a picture from Google?
I’m hesitant to link to any of these observations since I’m not trying to attack the people who posted them, I just don’t know how to approach them.
(Edit): My usual response is to just ignore the observation, not touch anything, and move to the next one.
Basically, it’s fine as long as it is the observer’s photo and they remembered to update the time and location to where they took the original photo (and not the secondary snapshot). I agree, though, it can be hard to tell with photos of computer screens whether the photo is theirs or not. You can leave a comment and ask, but it’s also fine just to click “reviewed” and skip on to the next observation if you’re not in the mood.
If it came from the internet, or is a photo of a page in a field guide, it can be flagged for copyright infringement.
If it’s a photo of a photo the user took themselves, that’s totally fine.
If it’s a photo of a photo taken by a friend or family member, posted with permission, iNat let’s that slide even though it’s technically bending the rules a little.
For paper photos, I always look at the date of the observation. If it’s the same as the date it was posted, it’s highly unlikely anyone saw the organism, got a physical photo printed, and took a digital photo of that print to upload, all in a single day. I still identify if I can, but then I mark date inaccurate in the DQA to send it to casual. On the other hand if the observation date is from 30 years ago, it shows they are paying attention and doing things right.
My reaction to photos of phones or computer screens depends on how much time I have and how suspicious I am. Sometimes I do an image search using Google Lens (I know, ugh) exact matches, and can find where it was stolen from. Then I flag as copyright infringement.
If I don’t have the patience to do a search, don’t feel suspicious enough to do a search, or a search turns up nothing, I usually go ahead and ID if I can. Maybe they edit their photos on a computer that isn’t connected to the internet, or maybe a friend or family member took the photo and asked them to post it for ID help. Not a big deal as long as the person isn’t posting tons of these.
Quite a few iNatters (myself included) take a phone photo of the camera viewscreen to capture location data, which is handy when using an older or less expensive DSLR or other camera that lacks GPS capability. I usually delete these before even uploading, but I’ve seen others use the viewscreen shot as a placeholder, intending to upload the “good” photo later…but sometimes they forget or don’t get the time.
That makes a lot of sense, definitely explains a lot of the camera viewscreen shots I see. Appreciate the insight!
I’ve made a few “placeholder” photos of my camera viewscreen using my phone for this reason, to establish place and time. I replace that photo later when I download my camera. You see this a lot on eBird where the observer wants to quickly get a voucher photo of a rare bird out to other birders as confirmation that they actually saw a particular species.
Very good point about the dates of paper photos, I had not considered that. The phone/computer screens are harder to parse. I’m too nervous to flag for copyright infringement unless I’m 110% certain it’s not theirs, but finding an identical photo on Google would be a pretty solid indicator so that may be the solution. Often, when there’s one phony observation, there’s more (and I’m more inclined to give benefit of the doubt for one photo of a dandelion on a computer screen than, say 20 unique computer screen photos of birds of paradise in one day). So a good-faith report based on genuine evidence of infringement is probably the way to go for those.
If I had a feeling that someone’s observation might’ve been taken from a book or off the web and not theirs, I might leave a polite comment asking if it’s their photo but otherwise not act on it. It doesn’t hurt to inform the observer that a reviewer has questions about their pic. After all, there is a Notes section where an observer can explain the origin of their photo. If another reviewer recognizes the image as copyrighted material, then they can flag it.
Sometimes users also take photos of screens because they think of iNat as an app and they don’t know of any other way to get photos from their camera or computer onto iNat.
I don’t see screenshots/photos of screens as inherently suspicious, but they are more likely to have problems (such as wrong date or location), so I generally leave a comment to check what the situation is.
I also generally suggest that the user upload the original file, both because this reduces possibility for error in many (not all) workflows and – I can’t emphasize this enough – because the image quality is typically much better. I find back-of-camera photos extremely frustrating because usually many of the details that are helpful or necessary for insect ID are obscured by the screen pixelation – even though I may be able to see that the original photo likely shows exactly the traits that I want to see.
There are two situations encompassed here: (a) IF the poster was not present when the image was taken, that’s “bending the rules a little”, but (b) IF the poster was physically present at the time/place of the encounter and subject photo but simply wasn’t the one taking the photo, that’s perfectly fine.