Photographing plants

I have recently published a paper in collaboration Dr. Stephen Baskauf (Vanderbilt University) on image standards for photographing plants. Follow this link to see the paper. Developing standards for photographing plants is an important issue as more and more online resources become available for identifying and learning plants. In order to make effective use of these images it is helpful to have the plants and plant parts all photographed from the same angle, and in the same orientation. Our work is the first attempt to establish photographic standards for photographing plants. A standardized set of photographs can even be used as a supplement to a herbarium specimen of a species. The photographs have the advantage of showing color and details which are not visible in the dried specimen. Standardized photographs can also be used to teach plant identification with programs such as the Woody Plants of the southeastern United States: A Field Botany Course on CD, which I recently published in collaboration with Dr. Baskauf and others.