Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Clarendon Building

Clarendon Building edit

Voting period is over. Please don't add any new votes. Voting period ends on 31 Mar 2014 at 22:09:05 (UTC)

Original – The Clarendon Building is a Grade I listed building in Oxford, England, which was designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor

Reason: high quality and EV
Articles in which this image appears: Clarendon Building (most EV), Nicholas Hawksmoor
FP category for this image: Wikipedia:Featured pictures/Places/Architecture
Creator: Diliff

Support as nominator --Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 22:09, 21 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support - Centered subject, good lighting, colours and details. ///EuroCarGT 02:37, 22 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - It shows the building clearly, but Nicholas Hawksmoor (one of Britain's greatest architects) would have a fit if he were to see that his carefully contrived "perspective adjustments" could all be undone (without even demolishing the building). The curve that was on the outer pilasters is is known as entasis. They appeared to lean slightly inwards because they do lean slightly inwards. That is what an architect would call "perspective adjustment". The moment that you straighten the lines of a Classical building, you have diminished its aesthetics.

Presumably, in this case, it was impossible to take a whole photo that did justice to the building. However, stitching the shots together requires looking very hard at what the building actuallly does. What is straight and parallel, and what is not straight and parallel? One of the results of straightening the lines has been to make the cornice top-heavy. Don't over compensate. Amandajm (talk) 09:00, 23 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Support - picture perfect for me. Sanyambahga (talk) 06:32, 26 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
~~Oppose~~ per Amandajm. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 16:03, 26 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- I don't mean to start an argument with you Adam, but as I've explained numerous times in other nominations to Amandajm, I believe that her arguments against correcting vertical lines to be poppycock, generally speaking. She has an understanding of architectural history but not of perspective as it relates to geometry and photography, in my opinion, and this clouds her judgement on architectural photography. If you examine the photo in detail, you will see that the 'inwards leaning columns' do actually still lean inwards so I don't see how this image misrepresents the columns in significant way. The correction I made was based on the outer walls (which as far as I know, do not curve inwards as the columns do). Also, I'm concerned that Amandajm has made claims about this building's design that have not been demonstrated with a source. Certainly there is no information in the article about how exactly the building was designed and what Ancient Greek architectural principles were applied, so claiming that the Parthenon has curves does not prove that this building does. In any case, it could well be argued that correcting verticals actually shows the building's geometry more accurately than an uncorrected image. If the image were uncorrected, you would see inward leaning verticals but you could not determine easily if they were leaning inwards due to the camera's perspective, or because they actually do lean inwards in reality. Anyway, with critics like these, it's impossible to please everyone. All perspectives, projections and corrections require compromises. There is no one perfect view, and certainly not when the photographer is limited in the locations he can shoot from. One can never step back far enough from the subject to remove perspective distortion from architectural photography. It needs to be allowed for. Ðiliff «» (Talk) 10:10, 27 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You're probably right, though I don't know Hawksmoor's work well enough to judge in that case. Striking my vote, but not replacing it. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 11:17, 28 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Not Promoted --Sven Manguard Wha? 22:20, 31 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]