Commons:Featured picture candidates/File:Beilstein-Kaisersbach - Oberäcker - Blick über die Landschaft im Januar (2).jpg

From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository
Jump to navigation Jump to search

File:Beilstein-Kaisersbach - Oberäcker - Blick über die Landschaft im Januar (2).jpg, featured[edit]

Voting period is over. Please don't add any new votes.Voting period ends on 9 Sep 2020 at 02:16:28 (UTC)
Visit the nomination page to add or modify image notes.

Beilstein, Württemberg
  • Aristeas, I prefer it as it is but I'm happy if you want to add an alternative to the nomination with the different crop. I would support that one too, although I'm not personally convinced it's an improvement. Cmao20 (talk) 17:51, 31 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
In this photograph there are several elements, and each person will have a different perception because we all have a different way of observing. For me, the barn is an important touch in the composition since otherwise it would be a common evening. The bottom cut allows a closer look at what really matters in this composition and eliminates the distraction of street repair, however, it would merit a horizontal cut to bring the composition back into balance. --Wilfredor (talk) 19:34, 31 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Comment Thank you, Wilfredor for your explanation, and thank you, Ikan, Cmao20 and Palauenc05, for your hints! I will give it a try and see how a cropped version would look … (I will comment about results and maybe upload an alternative later.) --Aristeas (talk) 07:31, 1 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Comment I think the main problem with the patch might be that it is the only thing that's even close to a visual anchor point in the entire foreground. Some kind of interesting foreground feature could be what's needed to bring this to the next level. I also wonder if a longer focal length shot from further back could have helped by compressing the mostly empty middle ground a bit and bringing the barn closer. --El Grafo (talk) 08:08, 1 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Comment Sorry for the long delay. I have taken the time to experiment with various crops; this experiments taught me a lot. Some of the alternative crops were interesting, but none of them was (in my eyes) really better than the current image, so I have decided not to crop this photo. (Of course, if somebody would use it for anything, he/she is always free to crop to his/her taste.) You can put this as you want: either this photo is OK as it is, or it is just incorrigible bad ;–).
This does not mean that I do not want to take advise and to learn; on the contrary, I am always open for suggestions on my photos. Just in this case I am not convinced changing the photo would really improve it.
The barn and the trees, the wood in the left background, and the other features give the image some kind of balanced tension which I cannot explain, but which I like; there is even some kind of correspondence between the field and the sky with their different colours and warm/cold contrast; and if I change the image format too much, this balanced tension and this correspondence are lost. Therefore I do not apply the radical crop which I had considered in my comment above. Of course cropping the bottommost 400 to 500 pixels out is an option which actually may improve the image; but then, the patch from the street is placed in the bottom left corner and emphasized even more, so I guess this crop would not satisfy everybody ;–). I have also tried to clone out the patch from the street; I often clone out smaller irritating stuff from my photos, but somehow I hestiate to do so with that patch. This is a rural road, and call me stubborn but I feel that such patches are what makes the road real and distinguishes our photos from computer-generated graphics. ;–)
It is true that there is nothing specifically interesting in the foreground; and I know, every textbook on photography tells us that especially wide-angle photos need some point of interest in the foreground. This is not a wide-angle photo (taken at 55mm focal length on full-frame), but it certainly looks similar. But there was nothing in the foreground, and nevertheless this view appealed to me and, as the votes show, also to some other people. Sometimes it may be OK to leave the rules of the textbooks. As Basile put it (thank you!), this is an “airy composition”, its actual subject is not the barn or this or that tree, but the free airspace over the hills filled with warm light and the width of the view, hold together by the leading line of the rural road and the balanced tension between the darker points, and therefore it seems appropriate to me that there is some emptiness in this photo, even in the foreground.
Please excuse my wordiness! I do not want to praise myself or this photo (I actually think of me as a very defective photographer ;–)), I just want to justify, somewhat, why I prefer the photo as it is. Thank you all for your statements, hints and ideas, and all the best, --Aristeas (talk) 15:34, 2 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your speech very loaded with motivating messages, they helped me a lot (or maybe it's an accidental translation from google translator). --Wilfredor (talk) 22:21, 2 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
No, thanks for your "wordiness", Aristeas! I come here to learn and I'm always happy to see others share their thought process. The longer I look at it, the more I see that patch as a feature rather than a problem. Maybe it actually is that foreground feature that I thought was missing. And FWIW, I completely agree with not radically cropping the bottom. I've played around with it a bit myself, and I think personally I'd crop away a bit on the right, just to the left of that one tree on the ridge (I'll leave an annotation). It's a bit less airy like that, but it feels "right" to me. A bit more compact, pronounces both the patch and the barn more and seems to somehow balance it … I'd maybe also cut a bit of the sky, but I'm not so sure about that. Anyway: I like it! --El Grafo (talk) 15:00, 4 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Confirmed results:
Result: 26 support, 1 oppose, 0 neutral → featured. /--Palauenc05 (talk) 08:25, 9 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
This image will be added to the FP gallery: Places/Natural/Germany#Baden-Württemberg
Retrieved from "https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Commons:Featured_picture_candidates/File:Beilstein-Kaisersbach_-_Oberäcker_-_Blick_über_die_Landschaft_im_Januar_(2).jpg&oldid=672657170"