Commons:Featured picture candidates/File:AA gun firing during Continuation War.jpg

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File:AA gun firing during Continuation War.jpg, not featured[edit]

Voting period is over. Please don't add any new votes.Voting period ends on 3 Mar 2018 at 21:49:30 (UTC)
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AA gun firing

(Edit conflict)* Oppose A very interesting photo, I can see why it intrigues you. You could guess that the very exact triple exposure is a result of the ground shaking when the gun fired. Unfortunately it is in rather poor condition with scratches, dust and spots, and I would suggest that you restore it the same way many other FPs of historical photos have been and re-nominate it after that. --cart-Talk 11:58, 23 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! Might do that in the future. Manelolo (talk) 15:26, 23 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, no. For getting that FP feeling, I'd be looking for an image where you can still see what's going on - like this one.--Peulle (talk) 19:22, 24 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Ha, I feel you! For me, a shot like that is too clinical to conduce any awe or sense of it being real (like a Formula 1 pic without any blur). Manelolo (talk) 19:57, 24 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Support Well, we've had grainy photos, historical photos, camera shake photos, B&W photos and restored photos here, so why not one that includes all of these aspects. :) --cart-Talk 10:21, 24 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Support per Cart --Martin Falbisoner (talk) 11:25, 24 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose For this kind of pictures the VI category is optimal, I don't see FP here.--Ermell (talk) 07:53, 26 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Neutral I really want to support this, since the image definitely gets me interested. Thing is, because the image is kind of a mess (I don't mean that in a strictly negative sense), the story behind it is crucial. If it were documented somewhere that it was the shockwave that caused the camera shake, I would support. However, is that the only explanation? Perhaps, with the barrel of the gun the sharpest element, its firing caused it to jump back a bit and the photographer instinctively panned to the right, keeping the gun in roughly the same position but ruining the exposure for everything else. Still makes for an interesting photo, but much of the appeal would be lost for me. I just don't know, and for that reason I can't support at this time. — Rhododendrites talk |  23:05, 26 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    @Rhododendrites: Hmm interesting pondering. I've identified it as a Swedish-made Bofors 40 mm gun (barrel, wheels, the portruding little reflector sight) which can fire at around 120 rounds per minute (2.0 rounds per second). The gun itself doesn't move that much when firing (see YouTube vid), but of course the barrel does. No idea if they fired only one shot at the observation tower or more. Unfortunately documentation from that time was a short caption onto the picture itself. :-) Manelolo (talk) 08:38, 27 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    And since I started exploring, found two more pics of most likely the same event: https://finna.fi/Record/sa-kuva.sa-kuva-75980?lng=en-gb and https://finna.fi/Record/sa-kuva.sa-kuva-75981?lng=en-gb. Both have similar exposure, but depending on the firing phase. The former is actually similarly interesting because only the soldiers are "trembling" and seem almost spectral compared to everything else. Manelolo (talk) 09:52, 27 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks for the added information. I guess it comes down to: how much of the FP-worthiness comes from the aesthetic of the image, and how certain are we that it isn't simply botched? It seems like part of why it's interesting (taking for granted, for a moment, that we don't know it was the shockwave) is that in most cases the photographer would just throw out such a photo and it wouldn't make it down through the years to the point that we're looking at it now. Obviously the photographer was in a noteworthy place/time/context, but if we're looking for documentation there are other better examples, it seems. — Rhododendrites talk |  14:44, 27 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Quite right. I am fairly certain it isn't botched per your reasoning as well as some other deduction: 1) The combat photographer has 271 shots in total from the war and most them normal quality material based on a quick sample. Like you said, he would have tossed this one (or the publication office for that matter) if he didn't see something in it. 2) The two other pics have the firing phase are at an earlier stage, but are already exposured a bit. Likewise, it seems too much of blind luck that with a botched move he would have gotten everything else exposured almost with a ruler, but the barrel of the gun (i.e. the only other thing moving with the shockwave) to be sharp—especially considering the whole firing phase takes less than half a second.
But this might be going too much into it already. I look at hundreds of war pictures from the archives on some days. Only a few catch my eye immediately from the thumbnails, this was one of them. Jumping a bit from the technicality discussion at the Swedish-women-signing-climate-deal FPC, war pictures from the frontline and in action IMHO should invoke a sense of the environment and situation (granted, this pic is one of the most extreme in that) in them instead of a crystal clear and sharp zoom of an artillery round fired 50 kilometres from the enemy and taken on a tripod. This must have been some of the photographer's first battles, if not the first, since the invasion started only 7 days prior to the picture. Most likely he wasn't too much inclined to jump around if the enemy was within the firing range of a 40 mm AA gun. And for me, it's somehow captivating how the picture turned out—taken during the night and at the exact right time. It made me stop and wonder. Manelolo (talk) 16:39, 27 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Confirmed results:
Result: 4 support, 4 oppose, 1 neutral → not featured. /--cart-Talk 07:08, 4 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
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