Reply to a thread on image descriptions. Most recent post suggested including what it is and what it looks like.
I usually try to describe what I want the image to convey.
In the waxwing case I’d definitely describe the bird, and probably add that it’s perched on a bare twig in front of a wide expanse of clear blue sky, and maybe add that only the blurred shape of the moon breaks the background.
Trying to get the mood across, since it looks like it’s intended to be an artistic photo.
On the other hand, if I was posting only to demonstrate the appearance of the bird itself, I would probably have cropped it further and would only describe the bird itself.
So I guess I use a combination of what it is, how it looks, and what it means.
The hard part there, of course, being that not everyone is going to agree on what it means, even when the context is the same.
And even when it’s a purely informational image, I might not notice, or decide not to include, let’s say a detail in the feathers that seems inconsequential to me, but someone else is using that feather shape to identify members of two different populations of waxwings, or something like that.
I’ve run into similar issues with iNaturalist with just the images, even before descriptions come into play. For example, several times I’ve taken photos of a plant, and when I posted them it turned out that the only way to tell which of two related species it is, is to look at a pattern on the lower part of the stem, or the bottom of the leaves, or some part I didn’t think to take a photo of in the first place!