Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Shakespeare Memorial Theatre

Shakespeare Memorial Theatre edit

Voting period is over. Please don't add any new votes. Voting period ends on 18 Mar 2013 at 17:34:50 (UTC)

Original – The Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, Stratford-on-Avon, which burned down in 1926.

Reason: One thing that old photographs - particularly the rarer, coloured photochroms - are especially good for is situations where a structure has changed significantly. In this case, it ceased to exist in a 1926 fire, and this lovely image therefore provides high encyclopedic value. Of course, the theatre and its replacement are handled in one article, which limits the scope of the EV, but I think that it does a really good job at illustrating that section.
Articles in which this image appears: Royal Shakespeare Theatre
FP category for this image: Probably Wikipedia:Featured_pictures/Places/Architecture, though I suppose a case could be made for Wikipedia:Featured_pictures/Culture,_entertainment,_and_lifestyle/Theatre
Creator: Detroit Publishing Co; restoration by Adam Cuerden

Support as nominator --Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 17:34, 9 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Support reasonable EV, good composition, and good technical quality considering how old it is. I wonder, is the text on the bottom right necessary? dllu (t,c) 02:28, 10 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
- Well, the thing is, that's part of the photochrom - effectively the signature - and I don't think we should ever remove parts of an artwork without really good reason. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 05:57, 10 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Support -- Colin°^Talk 21:13, 10 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Support Funny, I never thought much about the dichotomy of Commons vs. English Wikipedia FP till now. This image is awesome and an important addition to the article, so full speed ahead. But I really dislike the text at the bottom. I don't consider it the signature at all. Photochroms were apparently a big thing in early postcard days and the text would just be something that would've clarified to the card holder what they were looking at. Today, we have captions for that, or image description pages. – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 07:49, 11 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
- Maybe, but all our featured restorations from this company have kept the text so far, and I'd be uncomfortable with the precedent. If something has been an inherent part of an image for over a century, and we're presenting the image as being the one created over a century ago, it's misleading to have removed something without saying so. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 12:14, 11 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I get what you're saying, but this isn't an image of a photograph-with-text, this is a photograph of the theater and surrounding landscape. I can prove it to you: look at what article it's in. If this image were on a postcard article, I may agree with you. The text is not there in real life, growing out of the grass. The text isn't even there in the original plate. As for the misleading part, I disagree there completely. The text is in the original image which appears in the file upload history. With a {{watermark removed}} tag, the file description page points out that text in the image has been removed. It's an extremely unnecessary part of the image, it's not part of the actual photograph, and it's distracting. – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 20:38, 11 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

But to remove it a hundred years later? It's one thing to remove a modern watermark meant to unjustly block use of a public domain work. It's another thing to create a new work which never existed in that form: It may not have been on the photographic plate, but there was no colour film at the time, and it was added at the same time as the expert colourization. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 23:39, 11 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm aware that it was added at the original date of creation, but it's not like it's an artist's or photographer's signature. It's basically an on-image caption, and these should probably be moved off the image and into a real caption, now that technology affords us this. We won't see eye to eye on this image, and the text is more difficult to see on the smaller image as it appears on the article. But I do think it can be removed without detriment to the image—it's just grass. I don't consider it so apparent or visible (the main subject is much higher up in the image) as to affect my vote of support, which I wholeheartedly do, but I'd probably feel more strongly about historical images that have more noticeable text. – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 01:21, 12 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I, too, would like to see the text removed if possible. I don't consider it to be an integral part of the image, because this image isn't being used as a piece of artwork itself, but rather is being used to illustrate an article about the subject of the image. Rreagan007 (talk) 19:10, 11 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Support and please don't mess with the text. Although the photo is used to illustrate the theater, it could just as well be used to illustrate the article on Photochroms, so long as its historical veracity is not destroyed by removal of the signature. Stigmatella aurantiaca (talk) 10:00, 12 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think that's an excellent idea, in fact. The photochrom article shows an unprocessed photochrom, and this one would contrast nicely with it. And I'm okay keeping the text, especially if used to illustrate the photochrom itself. :) – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 11:10, 12 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Honestly, we should probably remove the unprocessed photochrom from that article: The Library of Congress don't calibrate their scans, so not doing a colour adjustment on the photochrom is itself misleading. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 13:14, 12 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: It looks like there's some significant damage to the right edge of the tree on the rightmost edge of the image. Any way that it could be restored? Sven Manguard Wha? 00:35, 16 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
- Do you mean the left? Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 03:00, 16 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  - Yes. I meant the left edge of the leftmost tree. My bad. Sven Manguard Wha? 03:35, 16 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    - Done, I believe. There's a chimney and bit of house just visible behind the tree, but I fixed the top bit. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 04:18, 16 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Support Looks nice, good EV. Spencer^T♦C 06:13, 16 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Promoted File:Detroit Publishing Company - Shakespeare's Memorial Theatre, Stratford-on-Avon, England.jpg --Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 17:50, 18 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]