Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Marine officer candidate Marine Corps Base Quantico 2019.jpg

Voting period is over. Please don't add any new votes. Voting period ends on 12 Nov 2019 at 14:57:47 (UTC)

Original – An unnamed Marine Corps officer candidate during a Medal of Honor run at Marine Corps Base Quantico in August 2019

Reason: I've been going through and selectively uploading images from the official US DOD website, and to be totally honest, I just really like this image. For context, company runs suuck and officer candidate school suuucks. The entire process is designed to beat you down and make you quit. You can see the suck on her face, the dirt and sweat, but she is still entirely composed, perfectly at the position of attention, and you can see exactly the indifferent endurance that this type of training is supposed to instill. The lighting is great. The composition is great. The guy standing at attention on the right, a head taller than her. The guy on the left casually looking off to the side, which he isn't supposed to be doing while the entire formation stands at the position of attention (chest out, arms down, eyes forward). Her whole demeanor just screams military discipline. The picture just perfectly illustrates exactly the surreal exhaustion you feel at that moment, chest out, arms down, eyes forward, knee deep in suck, but the suck be damned.
Articles in which this image appears: Women in the United States Marines
FP category for this image: Wikipedia:Featured pictures/People/Military
Creator: Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Phuchung Nguyen

Support as nominator – GMG ^talk 14:57, 2 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Support. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:02, 2 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Support Geoffroi 20:31, 2 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
~~Oppose~~ - great composition, but heavily compressed and suffering from JPEG artifacting. MER-C 11:34, 3 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I have written to DVIDS/Marine Corps Recruiting Command to see if it is possible to get a copy of the uncompressed original. GMG ^talk 21:35, 3 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@MER-C: I tthink (?) I've now gotten the uncompressed original. GMG ^talk 17:09, 8 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

That's noisier than I anticipated... and possibly unnecessarily so, as the photo could have been shot at ISO 500 and 1/200 shutter speed compared to ISO 1000 (where the noise comes from) and 1/400. I've withdrawn my oppose, but would like to see a noise reduction performed on the background to support. MER-C 17:18, 8 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I uploaded a denoised version. Support. Bammesk (talk) 14:59, 9 November 2019 (UTC) . . . P.S. I uploaded it on top, I don't think it's a controversial edit.[reply]

Hey thanks for looking into it @Bammesk:. I've been fiddling with it for the past day or so trying to figure out how to do it correctly. GMG ^talk 15:02, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Gaussian blur in GIMP, very little on the face and chest, more so elsewhere, feathered selections for smooth transitions. Bammesk (talk) 15:10, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. I've been backing-and-forthing on this. A compelling portrait, but this feels a little too much like propaganda to me. The EV isn't really obvious, either. Josh Milburn (talk) 07:53, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Well, at least my own reasoning was that we have few high quality images of women in the Corps. Looking at related topics, without adding the image myself wrt POINT, Officer candidate school has not a single woman to be found. Officer Candidates School (United States Marine Corps) has only a single image copied from the last article, all men. The main article for United States Marine Corps, has four images for women ([1], [2], [3], [4]), one of which is historical, and the others are just pretty crap. GMG ^talk 13:59, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Not promoted --Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 14:58, 12 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]