Instructions for Sharing Photographs
Amateur and professional photographers have contributed all of the photographs displayed on the Butterflies and Moths of North America site, in species profile image galleries, in the main image gallery, and on the recently shared photographs gallery. If you have high quality photographs that you would like us to consider for the galleries, please follow the steps below.
Please note that we are most interested in receiving photographs of species that are missing from the image galleries or photographs that will replace poor quality images displayed in the galleries. If the gallery already contains many images of a species, we are seeking photographs that display different viewing angles, life stages, or variation. Not all photographs we receive will be added to the image galleries.
Step One
Crop your original photograph so that the insect fills the entire frame. There are no file size or image size restrictions. Put your name/copyright statement directly on the cropped photograph. (Photographers retain the copyright of their images.) It is a good practice to name your image with a unique filename that does not contain any spaces, such as: Genus-species-Joe-Smith-1.jpg. Visit the Recently Shared Photographs gallery for examples of cropping and copyright watermarks.
For assistance with cropping and watermarking images, see this FAQ.
Step Two
Get your photograph identified by an expert. The best and easiest way to do this is to submit your photograph as a sighting through our online submission form, which requires a free account. (Register for an account.). A regional coordinator will review your photograph, you will receive a confirmation e-mail with the identification, and your sighting will be added to the database. Using the submission form requires that you know when and where the photograph was taken. If you do not know these details, you can contact us to be connected with a regional expert who may be able to verify the identification.
Step Three
Once your photograph has been properly formatted and identified, send an e-mail to Kelly Lotts containing:
1) the cropped image,
2) the original image, and
3) an e-mail from the expert identifying your insect.
If you submitted your watermarked and cropped image using the online sighting submission form, just send the original image and verification e-mail (or record number) to Kelly. We store the original, uncropped image so we can document the plant species in the photograph.
