Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Kevin Murphy

Kevin Murphy

Voting period is over. Please don't add any new votes. Voting period ends on 21 Sep 2012 at 16:03:19 (UTC)

Original – Kevin Wagner Murphy is an American actor and writer best known as the voice and puppeteer of Tom Servo on the Peabody Award-winning comedy series Mystery Science Theater 3000. The cornfield is a reference to a recurring joke made on RiffTrax, with which Murphy is involved.

Reason: It's not absolutely huge, but it's eye-catching, of a high technical quality and was created (and released) by a notable photographer. To me, this is what portraits should look like, and they make excellent featured pictures.
Articles in which this image appears: Kevin Murphy (actor) (just replaced a far-inferior photo) and Tom Servo
FP category for this image: People/Entertainment
Creator: Kyle Cassidy

Support as nominator --J Milburn (talk) 16:03, 12 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment is there a reason he's in a wheat field? Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 16:09, 12 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- It's probably just some space very close to his home- he lives in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul area, and the picture was taken not far from there. J Milburn (talk) 16:45, 12 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's corn, not wheat. --evrik ^(talk) 18:36, 17 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support - although I would prefer it without the gratuitous wheat field, it could certainly be worse on that front and the other features are good. Also his actual occupation doesn't require a part of the photograph for it to be an FP. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 18:13, 12 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Support per nom. Excellent image with good colors, DOF and composition. --Wingtipvorte^X PTT ∅ 18:01, 12 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Famous photographer or not... I don't like the lighting (most of his face dark, and doesn't even render dramatic or whatever), the distracting wheat, and the slightly offset (see no reason for this) composition. - Blieusong (talk) 09:25, 13 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Support It is an excellent photo, nice. --Mediran ^talk 11:58, 14 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per Blieusong. ~~I can't really imagine what the photographer was thinking wrt the setting. They eyes in particular are too dark. Plus, at 1201 × 1800 it is below the 1500 threshold, with no good excuse.~~ Colin°^Talk 13:20, 15 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I can get a bigger copy of the file if necessary. --evrik ^(talk) 18:36, 17 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The new version is big enough now per criteria. It has been brightened a bit, which helps with the eye shadows but the result is increased noise in those shadows if one is being really picky -- ideally those would have been eliminated with a reflector or flash. Still, that's an improvement. There's a rather distracting nasal hair that was absent from the original and really could do with being plucked, photographically :-). The picture is softer too. Perhaps it wasn't sharpened like the previous one? I get the setting now (see J Milburn's comment below). This would work really well if that was a significant meme that was mentioned and reliably cited in the article. Having the article image caption quoting the "Is corn grass" line would help the whole thing make sense and shift me to a support. However, it is hard to get a decent caption into the lead image of an infobox, which is why those templates can sometimes be a PITA. As it stands, without article support for the weird setting, the EV is damaged and the portrait not fine enough to compensate. I appreciate the effort made here, and there's no doubt it is a valuable image and a million times better than what we had and what we typically have. Colin°^Talk 19:47, 18 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose agree with Blieusong. Pine^✉ 08:27, 16 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
~~Oppose~~: the lighting is unfortunate. Incidentally that isn't wheat. I don't know what it is (some sort of grass) but it's not wheat. Chick Bowen 18:08, 16 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Neutral at higher resolution and with explanation. The resolution does make a difference because his hair stands out better from the white sky. Chick Bowen 15:50, 20 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Support I like the vibrant colors. --evrik ^(talk) 18:36, 17 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: Kyle Cassidy has sent me a larger resolution shot, which I've uploaded over the top of the old one, and he also sent an explanation of the corn- apparently, asking "is corn grass?" is one of the ongoing memes of RiffTrax, with which Kevin Murphy is involved. See this forum and this YouTube video. That's why the photograph was taken where it was- I can expand the various captions as necessary if people think it would be helpful. J Milburn (talk) 19:08, 18 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- I think the new version has better lighting, but it's blurry, and the embarrassingly placed hair mentioned above is also a detraction. I'm still firmly opposed. Pine^✉ 08:18, 19 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Size wasn't a reason for me to oppose, so I keep opposing. - Blieusong (talk) 20:26, 19 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - yet another unsmiling portrait. Bearian (talk) 19:32, 19 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Smiles! J Milburn (talk) 16:26, 20 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Per above. Just doesn't look good. Dusty777 16:40, 20 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Not Promoted --King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 21:08, 21 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]