In some cases the daylily is new to the garden that year and does not look near as good as the hybridizer's picture. I had Time Drifter bloom for the first time in my garden this passed summer and it was butt ugly. It will shape up for next year but that does not make the pollen any less good. If a seed seller has had the daylily in their garden for more than two years I do not think there is any reason not to use your own picture. In the case of pod parent I think the picture should be a garden picture as most growers do not pollenate a daylily in its first year in the garden.

Edward

There is a great deal of work involved in hybridizing daylilies I know as I have done it in the past. There often is not enough time to get both the hybridizing done and also take good photos of each daylily as early morning is the best time in my opinon to do both. Taking photos when you have hundreds of cultivars is very time consuming and dependent on the weather as is hybridizing sometimes you just don't have time to get a photo and get the hybridizing done. Unless you have personally tried to do both of these and get the results that you expect I would not question the photos used. Sometimes you can take lots of photos and they just don't come out as good as the daylily looks in your garden depending on many factors, light conditions, camera, etc. Therefore it might be easier for some to use the hybridizers photo and have more time to pollinate. It is ideal if you can do both but many folks also have a job and there are not enough hours in the day to do everything.

Considering the quality of the pictures that the hybridizers use and others "borrow" from them, I have also discovered that sometimes the pictures one thinks are going to be great---aren't. I am not a hybridizer--don't even dabble. I take pictures and pictures and pictures. Then I download them and look at them carefully on the computer screen. It is surprising how often ones pictures just aren't good enough. Of course, one can run back to the garden and retake them, here again, sometimes it works. If you have to go to work, get the kids off to school and who knows what else, maybe you don't have time to retake them until you are satisfied. In the meantime, before you can get back to the plant, the darned dog peed on it.

I am retired and usually don't have to much to do early, I get up between 6 and 7 normally, I have time to play around with my pictures.

I am picky about them but, sometimes have to end up with some that aren't so good.

Digital cameras have made picture-taking so much easier but there are other things that can beat the camera.

Kay

I sold some seeds on the LA this year for the first time. Being just a hobbyist, I can understand folks like myself using photos from hybridizers or from other sources. You need moderately sophisticated image handling software to prepare a photo in the format that you need for posting on the LA and you need time. As for myself, I have been taking pictures of my flowers for a couple of years now so I wanted to use them - - even those blooming in my garden in their first year. Plus, I wanted to have both pod and pollen parents show in the thumbnail, so I had to make a special composite picture of the two individual parents. I wouldn't doubt that there is an easier ways to do it than I used, but posting 10-15 items at one time when I already had all the pictures and text ready ahead of time took me an hour or more. Getting the pictures ready will depend on an individual's computer abilities. A slightly easier way to do it is to post the picture of one parent only, but I think that limits what your potential purchaser wants to see.

At the same time, there are a number of folks who have been listing seeds for several years. They may not be "daylily professionals" in the strict sense of the word, but they are far out of my league. I would think that they would be able to use their own pictures. However, you will find that many well knows sellers of plants as well as seeds use the hybridizer's pictures or those from Tinker's Database for their postings. How many times have you seen a picture other than the hybridizer's picture for Bass Gibson or Mort Morss? I haven't seen many. One last thing - - if you use someone else's photo, you are suppose to either get their permission first and/or credit them with the photo in your text. That does not happen as often as it should either.
Larry

I use my own photos, always have, always will. I see no excuse not to. I have an inexpensive 3.2mp Nikon Coolpix, and I use the HP software that came with my printer to crop photos. I use the cameras software to adjust the brightness, but nothing else. I upload my photos to my photobucket album, and thats it.

I use html codes, to insert them in the text, and it works for me.

I go into the garden each morning with my first cup of coffee and shoot photos for about a half hour to an hour, then I hybridize. When I am finished hybridizing I come in and load the photos into the computer. If I don't think I got a good enough photo of something, I go out and do it again. It helps that I don't have a job with regular hours. I am doing some consulting work now, and I can work their schedule into mine.

I use a light gray umbrella that I paid $1.99 for to shade the flowers and it stops all the glare and shadows caused by the angle of the sun. If I'm shooting purple and it looks too red, I clip a plain white index card near the bloom and crop it out of the photo, the white helps the camera sdjust the color somehow.

I have photographed the same flowers over and over for years, always trying to get the best photo. I must have shot CATCHER IN THE EYE 30 or 40 times before I got a photo I was happy with.

If I wasn't out in the garden with the camera every morning I would have never gotten this photo of a Hummingbird Moth, which did not land and was trying to feed I got 1 try. I zoomed the camera, and shot, the moth left and I was really lucky that day!

or this one......

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Love the Hummingbird Moth, Bambi..I have never seen one before....Ellie

I agree that a person should use their own photos when they can and I try to but more often than not- the pollinating wins out over the picture taking. I don't have the luxury of a relaxing morning as our heat is brutal very often early in the morning and most of my daylilies are in direct sunlight. I have to get going quickly if my pollen is going to be viable for long - not to mention the bee population that is up at 2 a.m. I think..lol. I have gone back to take a picture of a daylily only to realize I had taken all the stamens - hence making the daylily look beat up. I recently listed some ZAHADOOM seeds but since my plant looks vastly different from the hybridizers photo, I made sure I found a suitable picture of my plant to display.
Hybridizers pic
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My picture

The same with HURRICANE SWIRLS - my plant didn't swirl this year - but is pretty none the less.

It does take lots of time and energy to make sure your photos are in a suitable format for posting - sometimes I get lazy.
Shelly

It would be perfectly acceptable for the vendors of seeds to use the hybridizers' photos, as long as they have written permission. Without it, they are violating copyright laws and are subject to being sued. Even creating a "hot link" to photos on another's website is unacceptable, for that is, in effect, theft of bandwidth.

Not everyone can be a successful photographer, but that's no excuse. Daylily vendors are living dangerously if they use others' photos without prior authorization.

If you are seriously concerned about the origin of photos at the Lily Auction, you might want to ask the hybridizer if that is their photo, and if permission was granted to the vendor. If that vendor just surreptiously used the photo without authorization, you might want to skip doing business with such an unethical person.