Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/The Terminal, by Alfred Stieglitz

Voting period is over. Please don't add any new votes. Voting period ends on 21 Nov 2021 at 12:22:22 (UTC)

Original – The Terminal, by Alfred Stieglitz, a black and white photograph taken in 1893

Reason: good quality reproduction of a famous picture
Articles in which this image appears: The Terminal (photograph), Street photography
FP category for this image: Wikipedia:Featured pictures/History/USA History
Creator: Alfred Stieglitz

Alt 1 – The Terminal, by Alfred Stieglitz, a black and white photograph taken in 1893

Support as nominator – Yann (talk) 12:22, 11 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose for now - lots of dust spots. --Janke | Talk 20:37, 11 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Comment – In this case I disagree with removing the tone. This source shows scans of four different prints (earliest is a 1895 print, then 1911, ~1913, 1929/1932). In this case, the tone is a signature of (and inherent to) the individual print, therefore I think we should accept the scans as given by the sources and not modify the tones. For the nom image, the scan is of a ~1913 print at the Metropolitan Museum [1], [2]. I think we should keep the tone, and do minor restoration for spot removal as necessary. Bammesk (talk) 05:17, 12 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Bammesk: IMO, the colors of the image are not the original colors, due to aging. I just tried to restore the original sepia tone. I propose an alternative, from another museum, with less changes, a higher resolution and a wider crop. What do you think? Regards, Yann (talk) 10:56, 13 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Yann:, we have 4 versions here: [3][4][5][6] with known and early print dates, so I prefer one of them, or something similar in tone and contrast. The Alt 1 is a fifth and more contrasty (very different) version at the Cleveland museum [7]. Also the Cleveland museum gives a less contrasty (better) version here: [8] which seems to be the actual scan. Bammesk (talk) 15:19, 13 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Bammesk: This is a copy of Camera Work, which is a photogravure. I think photogravure gives a soft tone. According to the museums which have a copy of the picture, there were also prints with various processes (carbon print, gelatin silver print, collotype print). Of course, each of these will give a different result, in terms of contrast and colors. Why should we prefer one rather than another? There is no perfect solution. I don't believe Stieglitz wanted his images to have a pink tint. We can only try to have one with the best quality, and more faithful to the intention of the creator. Regards, Yann (talk) 15:37, 13 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

For historic photos (especially works of art which this is now) I think we should try to keep them as they were at the time, and keep the reprocessing to necessities. The four links I gave above (plus one at Cleveland museum) tell us about the tone and contrast. I agree that the 1913 version [9] didn't originally have a deep tint as it does now, so I agree with doing some correction there. But I don't think it had a high contrast as depicted by the nom versions. Bammesk (talk) 16:32, 13 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I like the nom more than I dislike deviating from the scans. Support either, one has finer detail, the other shows more area. Bammesk (talk) 18:20, 13 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - do we know anything about the history of the crop in the Original? The Original has far more detail, sufficient that I would be uncomfortable promoting the Alt (look at the coat and front horse - the alt merges these into undifferentiated black); but quite a bit is cropped out. Do we know if this crop was done by the photographer or is a later edit? TSP (talk) 14:54, 16 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This source shows 4 prints, first one is dated 1895, then lower on the page 1911, ~1913, ~1929. The first nominated image is the 1913 crop (edited). According to the primary article, Stieglitz was active in New York between 1893 and 1895. He shot this photo in 1893, so I figure the 1895 print is closest to being an original. Bammesk (talk) 01:47, 17 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that 1895 version might be a better nom than either of our current options? It's the closest to the original photographic date, and the brighter processing reveals detail the others don't (e.g. on the horse's collar); though at the expense of some detail at the high end (e.g. on the snow piles). TSP (talk) 11:23, 18 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Not Promoted --Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 17:21, 21 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]