no sampling design
scientific, not creative
technical … how to image the same specimen and locale over month\s
Additional Details: bryophyte phenology
Hi Jan,
Not sure I (or anyone here on NPN) can give you good advice on how to image the same specimen/locality over time. It seems to me that would depend on what changes occur during the seasons and what’s important relative to the organism. If I were doing a long-term documentary project like this, I would return to the same specimen/locality and set up the camera the same way every time so viewers could compare apples to apples, as it were. That would involve taking notes on camera/lens set up (aperture, focal length, focus distance, etc.) so it could be replicated.
You didn’t ask for aesthetic advice, but, for me at least, even documentary photographs should be reasonably aesthetic, with few interfering things in the frame. For example, in your 4th photo, there are some blown-out highlights at the bottom of the frame. Are these critical to what you’re trying to show? If not, why not crop them out?
It’s an interesting project. I’ve enjoyed photographing mosses in the past, although I don’t do much of that kind of photography anymore. You might check out Kris Smith’s portfolio here on NPN - she has quite a few moss (and fungi) photos - https://community.naturephotographers.network/u/kris_smith/activity/portfolio
Thank you much, Bonnie, for your comments.
I will study Kris Smith’s portfolio.
Can you send me a copy of the “4th photo” you commented on?
I have some long term photos from a few years back, taking pictures of the same organisms in same spots as repeatedly as I could. I was just learning what bryophyte phenology might mean and still have a lot to learn. But none of these grow in controlled circumstances. There is snow and varying lighting but no fertilizer or pesticides. Then I had a serious fall in December 2021. I am trying to get back focusing upon the Polytrichum (*) we have around the house and the Leucobryum glaucum.
I have not written up a long term sampling plan or comparable. And I have not submitted yet what I’m trying to do for critique to anyone for comments, except Professor Janice Glime. Right now I am getting back my macrophotography skills using equipment recommended by Dr Des Callaghan. Learning the equipment and such will take some time. I have a microscope and can take microphotographs through it.
I am hoping to take an assortment of photos of specific bryophytes over the course of years accompanied by careful notes. Question was where to stash the images. I currently store in Google Photos on our dime and just today purchased year+ subscriptions of Lightroom and Photoshop. I’m getting busier by the week.
I will begin around our home. I hope eventually to get back to Hale Reservation or Rocky Woods, rich in moss in both places. Of course, I have less control over what’s done around or to mosses at Hale, Rocky Woods or similar. I just hope that with enough photos of the same organisms stored for access for long enough there will be bryological data of scientific use.
Thanks,
– Jan Galkowski.
