Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Erica Jong by Bernard Gotfryd

Erica Jong

Voting period is over. Please don't add any new votes. Voting period ends on 18 Sep 2023 at 02:02:36 (UTC)

Original – The writer Erica Jong, photographed early in her career by Bernard Gotfryd

Reason: I am nominating this image to call attention to the large archive of public-domain photographs by the underrated journalistic portraitist Bernard Gotfryd. Gotfryd donated his physical images to the Library of Congress and his copyrights to the public upon his death; the LOC has made 8,835 of them available online. He had an interesting life and an interesting style, often praised for his charismatic but unsentimental candor. I don't know that this one is the best one, but it's intriguing, I think the use of natural light works well and represents the kind of improvisation that makes Gotfryd special, and it captures a side of Jong's personality, quite early in her career, not represented in the other photos of her on Commons. I should note that the LOC's date of 1969 seems unlikely--she was unknown at that date (I'm sure the LOC's dates for these are based on Gotfryd's boxes as they received them, so they might well be dates from). Based on her hairstyle in other photographs of her, I suspect it's from 1973, the year Fear of Flying was published. I have cleaned up the most obvious dust (there was plenty) but I know you have high standards for such things here.
Articles in which this image appears: Erica Jong
FP category for this image: Wikipedia:Featured pictures/People/Artists and writers
Creator: Bernard Gotfryd, lightly edited by User:Blameless

Support as nominator – blameless 02:02, 8 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

As an aside, we recently featured his Picture of Angela Davis. A dozen spots around the necklace, another dozen lower right. Also, a blue spot upper right, otherwise pretty darn good. Colours arguably faded, but very authentic for the era. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.5% of all FPs.} 02:09, 8 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I'll try to work on those spots tomorrow. That's a great picture of Davis, but I'm not sure what's happening with the images in that article--it looks like Gotfryd's was removed but now the 2014 one is in it twice? Presumably it will stabilize, hopefully with Gotfryd's in it somewhere. blameless 02:43, 8 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

People can be stupid about things. Reverted a bad edit. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.5% of all FPs.} 16:12, 8 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Nice portrait, even though quite grainy - also not too nice background. Note to restorer: there is a teensy bit more space on the left side in the LOC original file... --Janke | Talk 08:16, 8 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Comment – Nice comp of an interesting subject, but quite indistinct at full res. – Sca (talk) 13:00, 8 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, all. I've attended to the spots Adam Cuerden mentioned. Janke, that cropped out bit on the left has some kind of gray fiber intruding into it--I think this must be a mounted slide, and the mount has started to degrade. There might be a few more pixels one could get and still have a clean edge--not sure. No problem withdrawing this if the quality isn't there. blameless 01:35, 9 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Excellent composition — Chris Woodrich (talk) 11:50, 9 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support You get a certain amount of up and down in film quality over the decades, especially with new innovations like "shorter exposure" and "colour". This seems quite good for its era. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.5% of all FPs.} 05:52, 10 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. MER-C 18:14, 10 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose great to have a decent picture of the subject, but frankly I don't see what makes it feature-worthy. The composition and hair obscuring the face limit its EV, IMO, and that's my primary concern here. (t · c) buidhe 05:44, 13 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
- I can see being turned off by how heavily shadowed it is, but as far as the hair is concerned, if that's how she was representing herself publicly and professionally at this point in her career, then it seems like there's some value in that. She seemed to do it a lot; it's not incidental to this photograph. blameless 04:33, 14 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support – different than our typical portraits. It is not sharp, but good enough at 50% magnification at around 1600 x 2200 pixels. Bammesk (talk) 14:34, 16 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Promoted File:Erica Jong by Bernard Gotfryd edit.jpg --Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 12:27, 18 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]