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Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/File:Blackness Castle, Blackness, Scotland..jpg

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Blackness Castle edit

Voting period is over. Please don't add any new votes. Voting period ends on 17 Jun 2013 at 15:12:33 (UTC)

 
Original – Blackness Castle stands on a promontory in the south of the Firth of Forth. The tower and the surrounding walls date from the 15th century, while the buildings seen standing against the edge of the enclosure were added in the 16th century.
Reason
I've not been through the FP process before, so I'm going to treat the criteria like a check list, so sorry if this if overkill.
  1. High technical standard: I am not an avid photographer, but to my eye it's well framed with the subject front and centre, with the landscape in the background adding context. I asked for the opinion of someone far more experienced with images than I, and there is some "funny artefacting". I'm pretty sure that's the technical term.
  2. High resolution: the full size is 3,648 × 2,736 pixels.
  3. Amongst Wikipedia's best work: I edit a lot of articles about buildings, particularly castle, and aerial photographs are very rare. Ones with good colours, which show the whole subject, are of a good size, and are Commons licensed are even rarer. Aerial photographs allow you to view a building almost all at once; that's part of the reason why you'll find them in publications on buildings. And they have the advantage of being compelling. It really stands out, and for that reason is the lead image of the article on the castle. I think it's really important to have a photo which makes people want to learn more, and this image fills that description to a t. It has the advantage of showing the whole of the castle in its landscape on the edge of the Firth of Forth, helping to understand the strength of the site. It is an uncommon angle because the camera was suspended underneath a kite, flown by the photographer standing on the jetty projecting from the promontory.
  4. Has a free licence: CC-BY 3.0
  5. Adds encyclopedic value: This relates to the third criterion, but in particular this adds a lot to the article on Blackness Castle. In a nutshell, when writing an article on a building I am desparate for good aerial photgraphs. People would give their eye teeth for this photo of
  6. Is verifiable: yep
  7. Full description: complete with geotag and meta data
  8. No digital manipulation: It doesn't look manipulated to me and the meta data indicates as much.
Articles in which this image appears
FP category for this image
Wikipedia:Featured pictures/Places/Architecture
Creator
Dr John Wells
  • Support as nominator --Nev1 (talk) 15:12, 8 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose this has no illustration of the building's depth (in fact, it looks like we got the shorter side of it). We can't see just how far the building goes because of this angle. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:25, 8 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    The buildings you can see behind the tower standing alone in the courtyard mark the end of the castle, so you can see how far back it goes. I might be misunderstanding what you mean by depth though. Nev1 (talk) 15:39, 8 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think what Crisco means (because I see it, too) is that the angle from which the photo is taken compresses the perspective so that you can't perceive the depth of the courtyard and distances between the objects accurately. From the photo it's quite difficult to tell that the layout of the castle is much more like this. Cowtowner (talk) 17:12, 8 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • More or less, yes. That second photograph illustrates my concern somewhat (who would have expected empty space between the two towers, for instance, from this photograph?) — Crisco 1492 (talk) 06:06, 9 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks for taking the trouble to explain that to me, both of you. I understand the concern (and that photo is rather good too, don't suppose we can contact the copyright holder?) but I still think this file is amongst the best Wikipedia has to offer and is a good representation of the castle. Nev1 (talk) 21:40, 12 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • comment File:San Francisco in ruin edit2.jpg – Kerαunoςcopia◁galaxies 04:10, 9 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support I like this picture because of the way this photo is taken (using kite), it really gives an unusual angle and inspire to read the article further. For other points I agree with the poster's logic. Godhulii 1985 (talk) 12:25, 9 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Feel free to vote and participate but don't run around deleting others' comments or votes. Cowtowner (talk) 15:34, 9 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support An unusual picture, and like Godhulii, I like the fact that it was taken using kite photography. Hchc2009 (talk) 17:49, 9 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose As mentioned above, I think this composition is a poor illustration of the castle. Additionally, there seems to be a lot of noise, or some kind of artefacting, as well as a lack of shadow detail which hurts its technical quality. Cowtowner (talk) 18:45, 9 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: really cool picture when you look at it at file view size. the angle which seems quirky, then does not bother me and you see the whole landscape. I don't think this is a good lead image though. Probably better to have something simpler like the front door or the main view that tourists have (more iconic, simple) in lead. This could be a panorama-ish shot lower down and support some discussion of how the castle fits in with the modern world around it now.TCO (talk) 22:56, 9 June 2013 (UTC) Also, I support the technical effort taken to get the photo.TCO (talk) 22:58, 9 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment IMO The image has high encyclopaedic value, providing a good overview of the castle's layout and immediate surroundings, unlike any of our previous castle FPs. However I think the bottom crop is too tight, so that is not evident from the image that the castle is located at the tip of a small peninsula, and looking at the image alone I've first mistaken the pier to be an access bridge. I also find the perspective distortions excessive: for instance from the image is hard to deduct that the bottom-left corner is at 90 degrees. --ELEKHHT 01:25, 10 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support While the image has some technical faults, having been to Blackness, I can say it's a very difficult castle to photograph - everything is fairly tight, and there's very little gap between the castle and the firth. As such, I think that this comes under the "mediocre photo of a very difficult subject" exception. Adam Cuerden (talk) 19:38, 11 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support I'm convinced. I scrolled through a lot of pictures and it really does look like the only feasible angle from which to photograph the castle. That said, I still would like better quality, but it's a tough enough picture to get. Cowtowner (talk) 02:47, 12 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Promoted File:Blackness Castle, Blackness, Scotland..jpg --Armbrust The Homunculus 16:01, 17 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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