Viewing post #931918 by Catmint20906

thanks for your thoughtful comments, Dirt and @Calif_Sue.

Dirt, I can see what you mean about the large photo of the Monarch where we see only a glimpse of the Liatris. I would agree with you and Sue and others that this would not be a good photo for the plant database as the plant is barely visible! I also agree that some of the gorgeous thumbnails you've featured that contain both pollinators and clear shots of the blooms are beautiful. I agree that if the primary resistance to pollinator photos in the plant database revolves around the thumbnail, then we need a separate workaround for that, and I would trust Dave and the plant database admins to figure that out.

Sue, thanks for the further explanation and clarification. I don't know much about databases etc and so I have been confused about the term 'gallery' versus 'database' but I think flashes of understanding are coming to me now. Maybe there would be some way of linking two separate databases-- one focused on pollinators (caveat: pollinator must be on an identifiable plant), and one on plants? I can see Dirt's point of not wanting to completely separate out the gorgeous pollinator shots he features above, so if the 2 databases were linked somehow, that issue could be addressed?

This past weekend I was preparing an article for submission to the ATP 'idea and article' box. I was actually focusing on pollinator photos and it was *very* time consuming to locate them in the database, because there was no way to pull them up separately. In fact, I think I spent more time trying to locate the best photos as I did writing the actual article!! Even so, I know I missed some excellent shots simply because of the nature of the task--like trying to find needles in multiple hay stacks. I ended up searching by the names of plants known to be popular with pollinators and then doing my best to identify photos that worked best--and this included features like direction the pollinator was facing, overall colors in the photo, and so on. If I'd been able to search by pollinator ('photos of tiger swallowtails'), it would have made my life so much easier.

In terms of why I deleted all my comments from that thread--to be honest, I struggle with significant bouts of depression and feelings of worthlessness, and I guess I felt 'shot down', which provoked my depression and negative self-feelings, and so in essence I removed myself from the conversation and the situation by deleting my comments, as a way to help myself let it go and move on.

However, I'm glad we are having a thoughtful conversation here... I am not sure how much I have to add that's constructive, given that I know nothing technically about constructing databases, but I enjoy listening to others' constructive comments, and offering my own thoughts in return.