Photo Workflow — Noon Source

Six places to grab photos

All free. Most public domain. Always check the license per image.

Unsplash No attributionBest-quality free stock. Search "Hill Country," "native plants," "drainage," "soil," "watershed." Curated for design feel; most ecological/landscape topics covered.
USDA NRCS Photo Gallery Public domainReal conservation work. Soil profiles, bioswales, cover crops, prescribed grazing, riparian buffers. Often labelled by state — filter for Texas.
USGS Media Gallery Public domainWater, geology, satellite. Aquifer cross-sections, Hill Country hydrology, Edwards Aquifer charts. The data layer most ecological essays need.
National Park Service Public domainLandscape, habitat, prescribed burns. Big Bend, Guadalupe Mountains, Padre Island for Texas-relevant ecosystems.
iNaturalist CC, check eachCitizen-science biodiversity. Filter by Texas/Bexar County. Use the photo info panel to confirm Creative Commons license (CC-BY typical). Attribute the photographer in caption.
LBJ Wildflower Center Educational useNative Texas plant photos with botanical accuracy. Educational/non-commercial use generally allowed; credit the photographer + Wildflower Center.

The CSS class — `.eco-image`

One filter. Any photo looks like Noon documentation.

Drop a photo from any of the six sources into <figure class="eco-image"> and it gets the unified register: slightly desaturated (less candy), warm-brass tinted (slight sepia + hue rotation toward gold), gentle inner vignette, hairline brass border. A phone snap and a USDA archival photo land in the same key.

<figure class="eco-image eco-image--wide eco-image--landscape"> <img src="/assets/field-notes/lotus-pond-2025-08.jpg" alt="Concrete lotus petals, full afternoon sun." loading="lazy" /> <figcaption> Concrete petals at full afternoon. <span class="credit">Field photo · the Hill Country</span> </figcaption> </figure>

Variants available:

.eco-image--wide — max-width 880px (default)
.eco-image--full — max-width 1180px
.eco-image--narrow — max-width 560px (sidebar / inline)
.eco-image--landscape — forces 16:9 (use object-fit cover)
.eco-image--portrait — forces 3:4
.eco-image--square — forces 1:1

Live example

The Lotus — a 28-foot cast-concrete landmark surrounded by bioswales, in late-afternoon light. — The Lotus — a 28-foot concrete landmark cast in birch formwork and poured on location, then raised and leveled in a field of bioswales. Field photograph · Noon · 2026

Caption format

Short. Editorial. Always credit.

Italic Fraunces sets the tone. Keep captions to one sentence of observation, two if needed. The .credit span at the bottom is the small mono-caps line that names the source. Use it every time.

Default credit formats:
— Field photograph · Noon · YYYY
— Photo by [name] / Unsplash
— USDA NRCS Photo Gallery · public domain
— iNaturalist · [photographer] · CC BY 4.0
— LBJ Wildflower Center · [photographer]

Folder convention

Drop photos in /assets/field-notes/[slug]-[year-month].jpg or /assets/source/[slug].jpg. Web-optimize first (TinyPNG is fast and free). Aim for < 200 KB per image. The .eco-image filter does the rest of the lift visually.

When in doubt

Phone-shot field photo with the filter applied beats no photo at all. The whole point of .eco-image is to make this fast — your iPhone shot of a bioswale in October looks like Noon, USDA archival shots from 1987 look like Noon, and a clean Unsplash native-grass close-up looks like Noon. One register. No precious gatekeeping.