“Native White Vervain (Verbena urticifolia) is notoriously difficult to photograph well,” Lora Conrad wrote in the Iowa wildflower enthusiasts Facebook group in mid-July. “Several of us have tried and admitted our failures–no, not disasters, but just not the brilliant crisp sharp photo we want of those tiny flowers and their sprangled out in all kinds of directions flower stems on that three foot high plant!!”
Lora (whose photography skills are outstanding) added that she has “deleted so many images I made of White Vervain–far far more than I have kept.” I can relate—in fact, I leaned on Phil Specht and Wendie Schneider to provide many of the pictures in my post from 2018 featuring this species.
Just for fun, Lora organized the first photo challenge in the four-year history of the Facebook group where she, Katie Byerly, and I are administrators. We crowdsourced the judging: the winner was the photo with the most “likes” in the contest thread. I enclose the top performers below, along with some other entries.
Continue Reading...