Commons:Featured picture candidates/File:Wilhelminenaue in winter.jpg

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File:Wilhelminenaue in winter.jpg, not featured[edit]

Voting period is over. Please don't add any new votes.Voting period ends on 17 Mar 2017 at 19:42:57 (UTC)
Visit the nomination page to add or modify image notes.

SHORT DESCRIPTION
  • Category: Commons:Featured pictures/Places
  •  Info all by El Grafo -- El Grafo (talk) 19:42, 8 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Info OK, @W.carter, Martin Falbisoner, and Ikan Kekek: you called for it, so let's have some fun with this. This is the kind of picture I like to take just for myself and I had no intention of uploading it at Commons until … well, I'm just gonna blame it on those three mentioned before ;-) Somebody liked the view of that place well enough to drag a chair out into the shrubs, so I figured it might be worth a shot. So what do you all think (and please be blunt and honest)?
  •  Info Before you all ask: Yes, I know it is quite grainy, and there are multiple reasons for that. First, it was taken on HP5+, which is a fast film with a classic (i.e. non-T-grain) emulsion and thus pretty grainy by default. Second, it was shot in common 35mm film format (a.k.a. "Full Frame"), which due to it's relatively small size has much more apparent grain than the Medium- or Large Format film studio portraits we all have grown to enjoy here. Third, it was snowing like crazy at that moment and it's difficult to determine what's grain and what's a snow flake in the distance :-p.
  •  Support -- El Grafo (talk) 19:42, 8 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

* Support I'll support this for the pleasantry that it presents, even though this level of grain is not normal on a non-pushed HP5 shot. -- KennyOMG (talk) 19:59, 8 March 2017 (UTC)  Neutral After reading Lucas' comment about the grain obscuring the snowfall I have to go neutral on this. -- KennyOMG (talk) 15:19, 9 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  •  Comment @KennyOMG: For what it's worth, this one is indeed much grainier than any other shot from that roll, so even though I don't know what kind of soup the lab cooked it in, I'm pretty sure they're not to blame for this. I'm still pretty new to film, so any ideas on what might have caused this are very welcome: while I actually consider the grain a feature rather than a bug for this image, I'd like to find out if this is something I can influence. Maybe it was under-exposed a bit and my scanner quasi-pushed it? --El Grafo (talk) 20:28, 8 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm sure there are people around here who know much more about film than I do but yes, generally it pops out like this when you push the film either during development or scanning/printing. Normally it blends in fairly pleasantly with the rest of the image. Was looking for a full size scan but apparently don't have any with me right now. -- KennyOMG (talk) 22:20, 8 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Actually found one shot on HP5+ and uploaded, File:LHR_T5_early_morning.jpg. It's almost double the regular frame (24x65mm) and a softer scan but no work whatsoever besides that. The grain is apparent in medium greys but not in the whites like your the snow in your pic. Another thought is maybe you shot on expired film? -- KennyOMG (talk) 22:33, 8 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Pretty sure it was fresh film, but comparing the camera settings of this shot with others from that day, it looks like it might be under-exposed by about one stop. I tend to under-expose a bit on digital to save the highlights – a habit that's counter-productive on film, where you should be more concerned about the shadows … --El Grafo (talk) 09:56, 9 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Weak support This is not bad at all! The graininess goes very well with the snowy dreamy landscape and the abandoned feel of the scene. The 'weak' in the support is only because of the vignetting (any chance of getting rid of that?) and it would have been better not to have the 7-9 twigs down left in front of the chair. A bit of analogue editing (such as holding those back with a foot) would have been better. If this is an example of what you do when we are not looking, I'd be happy to see more. :) This is artistic. --cart-Talk 20:12, 8 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Support - I like it, but I'm not sure how I would have voted if you hadn't given some background about the photo above. -- Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:09, 8 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose I don't find the composition sufficiently interesting. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 00:05, 9 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Support Though some would disagree, I've come to believe, generally speaking, that there are two purposes of photography: photography for "technical purposes" and photography for art and aesthetics. Both are vital to one another, and usually, to some extent, the two cross with each other. Any accomplished photographer to some degree knows the technical side of photography, and most other people that own a camera probably strive to better learn it, though far less photographers consciously know or think about the "art side" of photography, and an even smaller minority of those people can actually work well with photography while treating it as art. Of course every good photographer thinks about their work, and can easily recognize a good image from a bad image or good composition versus bad composition, though less seem to think about stylistic choices to achieve effect, or simply just trying to break from the monotonous. I've only gotten into photography in the last couple of years, and don't remember a time when analog was considered superior to digital, though I've picked up the fact that when photographers shoot with actual film, they tend to think more about their image. I have an older Pentax film SLR that I've never used, and now after seeing this image on here, I too might order some film and try to give it a shot.
The photograph is very nice, and though there is grain, it doesn't feel that anything is lost, almost to the point where I don't even want to zoom in, I just like looking at it as a whole. Everything seems to work together, and the chair by itself is interesting in the natural scenery; reminds me (maybe because of the stenciled letters on the chair) of photos from World War II or the Vietnam War because of the film and grain, making it feel distant or far away. WClarke 00:48, 9 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Support OK, my turn. Much has been said above already, so just a few inconherent thoughts. Every single "technical issue" here (as conventionally defined by our off-the-shelf voting patterns) is a major feature - not a bug. The picture wouldn't work for me, were it not for the heavy grain, vignetting, the spots and bruises of the film's surface. It conveys a feeling of wabi-sabi - although Bavaria's far from Nippon and Zen doesn't really accept the snugness of chairs. Bluntly speaking, a technically perfect image of a not so interesting chair in bad weather would be interesting maybe, but not much more. Another approach: When viewed at full screen, the picture appears almost a bit pointilistic - and thus pictorialist - which makes it a bold and determined atttempt at art. It could have been made around 1900. Only the contemporary chair doesn't fit at all, a striking punchline. Chapeau! --Martin Falbisoner (talk) 07:27, 9 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Weak oppose The scene with the chair is lovely and has storytelling potential, but the grain is more of detriment than a feature in my view, because it obscures whether there was actual snowfall at the time or not (there was, but it's made less visible). Better visible snowfall would have been a clear plus for the photo, and I can't personally substitute all that heavy film grain for snow. I never shot film, was too young for it, so I have no emotional connection, so these are my feelings with that. The grain doesn't add anything good to the image for me personally and as KennyOMG wrote it looks obsessively grainy and the photo might have been pushed too far in the processing per his comments. FP are the best of the best and I struggle to place this photo in this league. While I don't want to give too much importance to technical quality, in my view there is a point where technical flaws stand between the viewer and the scene itself, and I feel this has reached that point for me. – LucasT 08:23, 9 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Support "I don't even want to zoom in, I just like looking at it as a whole." (WClarke). I often take the sort of picture where I want you to zoom in all the way to 100% and explore it in minute detail. Other times, if you look at the photos at 100%, you're completely missing the point. -- Colin (talk) 16:20, 9 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose Too much going on in the background for me. Daniel Case (talk) 17:41, 9 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose Per King of Hearts and others. --Tomascastelazo (talk) 03:26, 10 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Comment I still shoot film sometimes and love a bit of natural grain, but as others have noted, the grain is excessive here - beyond what I would consider an aesthetically pleasing amount. I won't pretend to know whether it was introduced during developing or scanning or digital processing, but it does detract from the image. I'm undecided on how I feel about the image as a whole, but I don't think it's fair to characterize concerns about technical quality as mere forest-for-the-trees pixel peeping in this case. –Juliancolton | Talk 04:44, 10 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Comment Good to see that you're still shooting film. I've also recently taken some photos on 35mm HP5 film ([1], [2]) but the results were far from being as grainy as yours. I suppose there went anything wrong with the development. However, graininess is not really a thing for me as I like film grain a lot but I don't think that the photograph has sufficient wow for being FP. --Code (talk) 06:16, 10 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Confirmed results:
Result: 6 support, 4 oppose, 1 neutral → not featured. /lNeverCry 22:44, 17 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
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