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The following debate relating to this featured picture candidacy is archived. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the featured picture candidates talk page or the closer's talk page). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was retain . MER-C 02:33, 10 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Michele Merkin

[edit]
Michele Merkin
Reason
On close inspection, this image is a composite of two images. Zoom into the bow on the swimsuit, it is obvious that the subject was originally against a white background, and the lie of the bow also suggests that she was not in an upright position. As a (poorly) photoshopped composite, I do not believe this image is of featured quality. Also, look closely at the background, it seem to be a composite in itself.
  • No, it isn't. The shadows round her back support the same conclusion. As indeed does a close inspection of the background itself. What I think we're seeing here is the keylighting, shadows, and some reflection onto the back of the shadowed parts from the light background against which the photograph was originally taken. The edges of the body, the lighting on the fine body hairs and various other details convince me that this is a composite. Finally, look carefuly at the cords of the swimsuit bow. They look as if they are falling to the left. I'd say this was taken lying on her side, to get the hair effects, and then turned through 90 degrees and slapped on a composite background image of a model or GCI. The waterfall effect is out of scale. Guy (Help!) 14:37, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Guy, did you read the original debate? (I sure didn't).--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back 14:45, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, I finally read the original discussion. One editor felt the image was poorly Photoshopped; two others said they felt it was retouched skillfully. Agree that this is not a new discovery and certainly not an inherently disqualifying one.--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back 15:03, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I re-read the original debate as well. The photoshop comments were in passing and didn't gain much attention. Guy has done a better job of starting a discussion about the Photoshopping (I disagree on the exact points he is raising), and he is raising different Photoshopping concerns, so saying that it has already been discussed is missing the point. Carcharoth 15:49, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist - not for Guy's "Photoshopped" comment (I don't think the "bow on the swimsuit" is evidence of Photoshopping at all - though I am sure the photo was retouched in some photo editing software), but because the image has no encyclopedic value that sets it apart from similar images. I didn't take part in the original discussion. For the record, I would support a picture of a famous model, or a picture taken by a famous photographer. Wikidemo provided some examples earlier in another discussion. But this image is nothing more than an example of good photographic technique. For me, it doesn't have that extra factor of artistic or educational or historical value. Carcharoth 14:59, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Speedy keep As said above, all this has been discussed before in the original discussion.

    Yes, it's almost certainly been retouched: it would be surprising if a glamour photograph wasn't.

    No, I don't think it's a composite in the way suggested: the highlights around the bow and legs are completely consistent with natural backlighting, and matting from a white background would not look like that. If the highlights on the bow were created by poor matting of a foreground picture taken on a white background, it would be a sign of very poor retouching indeed, and this is just not consistent with the rest of the image (if the compositor can't get the bow right, how could they have done such a good job on the much more difficult hair?) It's also very unlikely that a compositor would deliberately add the appearance of highlights on fine leg and body hair to a glamour photo, just to perplex attempts at detecting retouching. As for the shadows and highlights on her skin; they are consistent with reflective fill lighting (take a look at her eyes; reflections in eyes are windows on a photograph's lighting environment). As for lying on her back: her hair appears to be blown by the wind, not arranged lying down flat, or hanging downwards (again, look at the highlights, with are consistent with backlighting). Artificial or real wind strong enough to do that to long hair is certainly strong enough to blow a bikini bow upwards. The backlighting of the waterfall is also consistent with the overall lighting. Even the visible Mach banding around the sun is consistent with quantization stepping from the reduction to 24-bit colour of a photograph taken on a very clear day with a digital camera (again, if I'd have been retouching the photo, I'd have dithered it away.) If it's a composite, it's a very, very good one, and would take way more effort than a typical glamour shot. Since Occam's Razor suggests that it isn't a composite, and I can't be bothered to do image forensics to find out, I think it's for real. -- The Anome 15:13, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Strong Keep. It's a fine image, the composite nature is debatable, was discussed earlier, and would not be a disqualifier even if it were, and there is an important aspect of encyclopedic value; in the sense of value to the encyclopedia, not necessaarily any other encyclopedia, but a lot of value to this encyclopedia. That is that this is one of the first professionally taken, posed, and composed photographs to be released under a free license. Don't forget, that one of the goals of the Wikipedia is to make more content free as in speech; Jimbo Wales is adamant about that, and strongly encourages people to ask content owners to make their content free. Anyone remember when people were saying that professional quality photos would never be put under a free license? It wasn't that long ago, I've been here less than two years. This image is an important landmark towards that goal. That doesn't mean it should get any more play in articles. But it does mean it should get our Featured Picture marking, and, yes, display on our front page, all of which are similarly items of interest to this encyclopedia, not to any other encyclopedia. The Britannica wouldn't think this picture is anything special, because the Britannica isn't interested in making content free. We are. Also, the Britannica doesn't have featured pictures. Only we do. Featured status is a benefit to our contributors, who get a nice warm glow when their hard work is recognized. This is very valuable hard work that deserves that recognition. --AnonEMouse (squeak) 15:45, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • I happen to agree that this is not a composite (merely retouched slightly). But I can't find any previous discussion of this possibly being a composite image. As far I can tell, the previous discussion was only about retouching, not about the possibility of it being a composite. Before anyone else says "this has been discussed before", please quote from the previous discussion. Carcharoth 16:05, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Um, keep? This isn't a deletion debate, it's about whether the image is representative of the best images Wikipedia has to offer. No need to delete it, nobody's even suggesting that, but I think enough concern exists that we can'tr say with confidence that it is among the best images on Wikipedia, and that's what "featured image" means. Guy (Help!) 17:17, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - I'd also like to quote what Guy said elsewhere: "POTD should be for pictures taken by Wikipedians, or from sources that routinely make their content available freely; it's a way of promoting the value of free content images and encouraging people to join the free content movement by making great images available freely, not a way for article subjects to get their article on the front page by releasing one or a very small number of carefully selected promotional images. The front page should be a showcase for what's best about Wikipedia, the rare promotional images uploaded by article subjects are not one of those things. It wouldn't matter if it was Kellogg's uploading a picture of a packet of corn flakes, it's not about the nature of the subject, it's about what I believe POTD and Wikipedia are about. This subject does not GFDL most images, is not a part of the free content movement, and is not a member of the Wikipedia community, so her image is not "our best work"." - I agree 100% with this. NASA and the Library of Congress are (hopefully) continuous sources of PD images. Selectively releasing GFDL is good for the free content movement in the short term, but may be harmful in the long term. Carcharoth 15:49, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • I couldn't disagree more. Since when is it required for everything that someone does to be free content in order for them to be part of the free content movement? Linus Torvalds worked for commercial companies during much of the time he was developing Linux, and didn't release all of that work; would you have said he wasn't part of the free content movement? You and I and everyone here have day jobs, and except for the small percentage that actually do paying work for Wikipedia or Red Hat or something, we don't release all of our work, are we not part of the free content movement? All or nothing has never been what free content is about, and, frankly, is a terrible strategy in most fields.
      As for this image specifically, nothing succeeds like success, and prominently displaying the fact that professional images can be released is an incredible benefit towards more content being released. Just speaking for myself, the fact that this high quality image was released is a direct cause of my asking for more images to be released. This image was uploaded on July 14, 2007. I noticed it soon afterwards. Before then, I had asked for a few images to be released, and usually been turned down; I had taken it as a given that no professionals would ever make their work free for anyone to use, and that even amateurs would be reluctant. I had thought I was doing pretty well by getting half a dozen images. Here is what my image page, where I put those images that I found and asked for free license release, looked like then. [1] It took me a year and a half to do that. The fact that Videmus Omnia could get such high quality images released under a free license was an incredible goad to me. Here is what it looks like now, 4 months later: User:AnonEMouse/Images. The main reason for that is User:Videmus Omnia/Free Images and the "star" of that incredible archive is this image. My "success rate" getting has gone from about 45% to about 60%, and it isn't that I'm asking in a different way, it's that I'm asking much more, and am more confident that people will say "yes". I can only speak for myself with complete certainty, but have no doubt that making this image Featured is a huge benefit for the free content movement, short and long term. --AnonEMouse (squeak) 16:05, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • I've looked at both those image galleries, and I don't want to burst anyone's bubble, but your one is mostly poorly composited and poorly shot Flickr photos. Videmius Omnia's one has a preponderance of, shall we say "glamour photos", though they are of better quality than the Flickr ones. It's a good start, but nearly every single one of those pictures could be replaced by a better quality one at some point in the future. I'm firmly in the "images need to be of a high quality, and poor images makes Wikipedia look unprofessional" school of thought. A particular bugbear of mine is the "taken by a fan" pictures, which can be spotted a mile off, and is beginning to be the "hallmark" of Wikipedia's "quality". I do admit my bias though, because I'm used to seeing good photos as part of my everyday business. Moving on from that, I would be more impressed if you were getting the really difficult photos, such as the ones that are in "inaccessible places", that photographers pay time and money to travel to and photograph - remote regions of the world, for example, rare animals, underwater photos, or the ones taken with special techniques, like scanning electron micrographs (see here for an example), and X-rays (the Commons category for X-rays is painfully threadbare), stuff like that. E-mail those sort of photographers, and medical/scientific people, and try and get some free shots like that. Celebrity shots are far less encyclopedic than pictures like the ones I've just suggested. Carcharoth 16:21, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        • Thanks for the brutal honesty. I know I'm not as good as he is, it says so right at the top of that page. I'm not even saying that most of his pics should be nominated for FP, if I was, I'd nominate them. But I am saying that having a Wikipedia:Featured picture from a request to a professional is a wonderful inspiration, the same way that reading the Wikipedia: Featured articles is a wonderful inspiration for people to write other articles. And please don't go through my list of other article contributions now and comment how terrible they are. --AnonEMouse (squeak) 16:34, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        • Yes, Carcharoth, thanks for the critique on the photo quality. I guess it would be better in these cases to have no photo at all, if we can't a photo that's absolutely perfect. Anyway, I would love to hear some tips from you on how to get some better photos to replace the existing ones. I know a lot of the photos are of the "glamour" type; for some reason, people whose livelihood depends on their appearance are far more likely to provide a photo in response to a request. Videmus Omnia Talk 16:43, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
          • "I guess it would be better in these cases to have no photo at all, if we can't a photo that's absolutely perfect" - we don't need an absolutely perfect picture. I just have higher standards for photos than most people - and that's not likely to change anytime soon. "for some reason, people whose livelihood depends on their appearance are far more likely to provide a photo in response to a request" - now why would that be, I wonder? Does that not make you stop and think? Carcharoth 16:49, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
            • I understand your point that you believe the release of the images is self-promotional. I realize that as well, I'm not stupid. But the motive for donating the photo is irrelevant, from my perspective - if these people are notable and have biographical encyclopedia articles, then photos of them are encyclopedic. Your position seems contradictory - you only want high-quality photos of the article subjects, but the only way we're likely to get such is with a direct request to the individual concerned. Videmus Omnia Talk 16:59, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        • Actually, I was looking in the wrong place on Commons. This and this are far more promising. Plus this. But my point about focusing effort on encyclopedic pictures remains. At the end of the day, a picture of a celebrity, no matter how beautiful, is not educational in the best sense of that word. Carcharoth 16:27, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • I don't know what you mean by "not a part of the free content movement" or "not a member of the Wikipedia community". They joined the moment they GFDL'd their pictures. We should be welcoming professional photographers who dip their toe in to the free content world as new members of both communities, not criticizing them for being insufficiently "pure". -- The Anome 15:54, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • Normally I would agree, and would see nothing wrong with the "release one or two pics under a free license, but keep a tight exclusive copyright leash on the other pics" strategy, but Guy's points have got me reconsidering. Carcharoth 16:05, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        • It's not reasonable to expect someone who derives a large part of her income from images to give them away willy-nilly, even setting aside that she wouldn't own the copyright to most of them. Had this image been offered spontaneously, instead of in response to a Wikipedian's request, I'd be much more skeptical. —Cryptic 16:10, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • "All or nothing has never been what free content is about, and, frankly, is a terrible strategy in most fields." - I agree (I'm flip-flopping with my opinion). I should probably go and strike out some of my comments above, but it's got confusing, so I'll hope that people read all the way down here. I'll leave Guy's comments in, unless he objects to me quoting them. Carcharoth 16:45, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - I do not believe that this is a composite image, although as with all fashion/glamour pics, I'm sure it has been retouched. The white background that JzG refers to is merely the strong sunlight in the background. If this is a composite image, then the most tricky part lighting wise is the gap between her breast and her arm, and the lighting there looks realistic. The photo is obviously posed, and there is a fan blowing to accentuate her hair. But this is a very good photo of a notable person, which illustrates as much about the subject as other FPs. - hahnchen 16:41, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - I'm undecided as to whether this is a featured-quality picture, but this delisting is invalid because the reasons given are simply not true. This is very likely not a composite picture and it definitely wasn't taken at one orientation and then rotated. First, the bow: as with the fine hairs, this is backlit producing a bright fringe - it's not the result of shooting against a white background. The lighting is unnatural not because of compositing but because a strong fill-flash has been used - that's par for the course in glamour photography and essential to achieve proper exposure of the subject when shooting directly into the sun. Also, the bow isn't "falling to the side" - it's being blown up and backwards, probably by a fan positioned out of shot to the bottom right in order to blow the model's hair out behind her. The idea that the photo was shot lying down and then rotated is ludicrous - the model's body shows no signs at all of resting on a flat surface (e.g. compression of shoulder or buttocks). --YFB ¿ 17:12, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per YFB. --Mad Tinman T C 17:21, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I know a bit about fill flash, keylights and other photographic effects, though only at the amateur level. I studied photography for a couple of years, something which uniformly fails to show in the images I upload, sadly. However: the fall of the string is also wrong, and the solid shadow in the curve of the back does not square with genuine sunlight behind. If it was shot as-is, it was shot against a photographic backdrop, but actually I don't think it was. Guy (Help!) 17:23, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • The near part of her back is shadowed from the direct sun by the further-away part of her back. It's edge-on to the fill light, so it does not either pick up much light, or bounce much of it back (cosine law, both times). Compare, for example, the edges of her legs, which are similarly dark for the same reason. Since the specular fill light and sunlight are much brighter than the scattered light from the sky and reflected light from the rest of the scene, and the picture exposure has been chosen not to burn out the near-angle scattered light around the sun, this area is quite dark compared to the highlights, and thus the rest of the picture. The nearby highlights from the fill light make it look even darker.

    As for "out-of-scale water", it's clear from [2] that the arched water feature is nearby, rather than a distant viaduct. Again, to make convincing sparkling CG water with the correct lighting is difficult: why bother, when you can go to a location with a nice private swimming pool?

    I can't believe we're having this much discussion regarding this. A number of posters here have made clear arguments as to why the balance of probability is that this image was shot for real, and then retouched, rather than created as a composite. Guy, you're pretty much alone here in insisting that the image must be a composite. -- The Anome 17:34, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • (edit conflict) Guy, we're going to have to agree to disagree about the lighting - I know a bit about photography too and I can't see any aspect of this shot that rings false w.r.t lighting, except that it was obviously lit from the front as well as from behind. I really don't know what you're getting at with the water - if it was shot against a backdrop then the image on the backdrop must have been taken for real at some point (see the other shots in the original nomination - there are several different angles and the scale of the water is realistic for a cascade off a sharp-edged 'sluice'). The same with the string - it's obviously a real part of the garment so why would a retoucher bother to fake it? There's nothing about the way it's fallen that can't be explained by flash-frozen motion of the real thing in the blast of a fan. I agree with The Anome re: Occam's Razor. --YFB ¿ 17:46, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • The bow is probably glued against her hip to hold it in place, and stiffened with glue to get the shape it has. It's a common technique for photography to get clothing to fall exactly as the photographer wants it. --Carnildo 00:45, 4 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
LOL! This would be Porno Photographer's Special Glue, I imagine :o)) mikaultalk 08:15, 4 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds uncomfortable for the model --ffroth 19:25, 4 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. I'm not convinced that this is faked, though it seems likely. Question though: will this go on the main page? Wikipedia's not censored, but America is, and there could be a lot of problems (if not legally than reputation-wise, especially with schools) if we put her on the front page and people see "PORNOGRAPHY! OBJECTIFYING A WOMAN'S BODY!" and not "encyclopedic depiction of photographic techniques and good composition" as it actually is --ffroth 17:36, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Keep. I agree with the comments made at the other keep comments. I do not think this was a wise move by Guy. WAS 4.250 21:09, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I don't want the photo delisted, but I was a little surprised when this picture was selected to be featured, as it was my least favorite of the batch of Merkin photos. I guess my tastes must be a little different, or one of the other three would have been the winner. --Groggy Dice T | C 04:12, 4 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep on three counts: first, there's no way such a recently promoted FP need come up for delisting. Note to delisters: read the original nomination, look at the date, at the very least ask, "was this a borderline pass?" (over 3:1 in this case) and then nominate for delisting. Second, as well-established in the FPC debate, this is by far the best image we have to illustrate modern Glamour photography, so enc value is not in question. I agree that there is a general question mark over the value to the encyclopedia of images like the majority of those at User:Videmus Omnia/Free Images, per arguments above, but usage for this one is pretty good. Finally, I've assisted glamour photographers and can tell you that this is, without question, a perfectly standard and straightforward set up (blacklit, gold reflector and wind machine operated by assistant/s) with the usual facial retouching to get rid of reflections. A cursory glance at the alternatives on the FPC page shows that the backdrop is a real place, not something comped in afterwards. As someone pointed out earlier, there's just no point in creating all that extra work and expense. These are commercial images, shot for profit. Think about it. --mikaultalk 08:44, 4 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - I've looked over the original discussion, and it is indeed about 3:1 in favor of support. There were 11 opposes though (is this quite rare?), and quite a lot of discussion where at least four oppose votes were retracted or switched to neutral or support (the support votes were not questioned in the same way), so this wasn't as clear-cut as some people are making it out to be. Some of the support comments, while possibly tongue-in-cheek, don't really give reasons for supporting ("Wikipedia needs more Sexist Self-Promotion"; "It's maybe the best modern image of a living person in Wikipedia"; "[support] the one where here breasts are most visible ;-)"; "very very good subject"; "Obviously, a great picture"). Some of the oppose reasons are not great either, but the impression I get is of a controversial discussion where consensus is difficult to judge. This discussion alone shows that there is still discontent over it, and the fear that Wikipedia editors have a systematic bias on this subject is a very real one. So what should be done? A better structured discussion would be better in my opinion, moving the discussion away from subjective criteria and focusing on objective ones. Carcharoth 12:13, 4 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
There'll always be discontent over this image in particluar, because it's featured picture which arouses (shall we say) a lot of emotional and political sentiment. We have FPs of dead people, people being operated on, animals with their guts hanging out etc etc, ALL of which are subject to a regular barrage of POV slagging and whining (IMO) when they take their turn as PoD. The way I see it, these more controversial FPs have even more "right" to their status in the encyclopedia than other FPs, as they have been subject to a particularly rigorous grilling from the community. In the end, thankfully, good sense prevails: we still don't censor our content, and long may that continue. In short, objectivity has already been established here (over 25 positive opinions in the original nom, once you exclude the "phwoarrr" votes) and here once again in this delist (it seems) all subjectivity and blinkered points of view have been definitively elbowed out. --mikaultalk 18:23, 4 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hold your horses, let's not overreact to moral-based censorship by featuring more disturbing pictures just to spite their stupid anti-encyclopedicness. The standard is the same for pictures of fluffy bunnies as it is for naked, napalm'd little girls- they don't have even more right to be FP. --ffroth 19:24, 4 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I disagree. The fact that they're subject to the same criteria says nothing about their relative merits. The way those criteria are invoked varies according to the image and, crucially, depends on weight of opinion. If the standard truly was the same for all, each candidate would attract the same degree of scrutiny, which is never the case. Whatever: calls for (yet) more opinion regarding this particular FP are misplaced, IMO. --mikaultalk 23:36, 4 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist, though I suppose it will do no good. The picture isn't porn and it isn't corporate propaganda. It is, however, not very good. The lighting of the background is poor, the pose of the model is awkward, the backlighting of the subject adds nothing and is distracting and annoying. I have never understood the fuss over this image one way or the other. It's cliched and mediocre. Chick Bowen 23:14, 4 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
But isn't that cliché almost it's entire enc value? The lighting, pose, retouching, everything is typical 90's Glamour photography.. --mikaultalk 23:34, 4 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Closer's comments

[edit]

Firstly, consensus here at FPC is traditionally a 2:1 majority, not 3:1 as stated above. On a raw vote count (which isn't how this place works), we're already there.

Concerns about the image being POV/sexist or with respect to the message it sends are effectively irrelevant, as images are generally only as POV as their captions and featured pictures are not politically correct (if someone can take a technically sound photo of a woman in a burqa, we'd entertain that as well). Concerns about enc value were adequately rebutted in the debate - the image is enc for Michele Merkin (as it depicts her doing her job) and as one of our better examples of glamour photography. There were no substantial technical issues raised. Despite the "cool, naked women" votes, I'd say it was a fairly routine promotion, taking into account the above reasoning which addresses or invalidates about half of the opposes.

Whether a featured picture should be on the main page isn't my call. That would be Howcheng's. MER-C 07:47, 6 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]


The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the the featured picture candidates talk page or the closer's talk page). No further edits should be made to this page.
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