Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/The Horse in Motion

The Horse in Motion

Voting period is over. Please don't add any new votes. Voting period ends on 31 Mar 2017 at 04:40:42 (UTC)

Original – Sallie Gardner at a Gallop, photographic sequence by Eadweard Muybridge of a horse in motion

Reason

One of the most famous photo series of all time and an important precursor to the development of motion pictures.

Articles in which this image appears

Eadweard Muybridge, Sallie Gardner at a Gallop, Scientific method, Leland Stanford, Horse gait

FP category for this image

Wikipedia:Featured pictures/History/Others

Creator

Eadweard Muybridge

• Support as nominator – Kaldari (talk) 04:40, 21 March 2017 (UTC)
• Comment – Would need a lot of restoration before I could support. --Janke | Talk 10:54, 21 March 2017 (UTC)
  • @Janke and Adam Cuerden: In cases like this where we have an article about the photograph itself (rather than the subject of the photograph), is it appropriate to do restoration? Kaldari (talk) 21:02, 21 March 2017 (UTC)
    • I did some very light restoration on the image. Kaldari (talk) 16:39, 22 March 2017 (UTC)
      • I think the answer is yes, unless the article was about a particular copy (a specific print). I would support if obvious artifacts are cleaned up, for example the four corners, the vertical ink mark in the text area, several obvious spots on frames 1 and 2, and similar obvious spots elsewhere. By the way, I think adjusting the levels of frame 8 as was done here is a bad idea (the print is an integrated piece, not a collection). Bammesk (talk) 02:17, 23 March 2017 (UTC) . . sidenote: based on what I have seen here at FPC, restoration of historic works should 1-retain artifacts that are an integral part of the original work, 2-retain any purposeful-and-material additions made such as signatures, stamps, or such, 3-retain the historic technical integrity of the image, such as color, texture, etc.
• Comment - this is a photograph of a print, and not one in good condition; I strongly suspect that a cleaner version of the print may exist somewhere, which would mean a much better version of this would be possible. I initially thought this image, while much lower-resolution, showed one; however, while they are similar, they aren't identical, and I am curious to know which is the earlier. (The smaller image actually looks more like photographs - this one looks like it has been traced. This matches with the smaller image having 'The negatives ... are absolutely "untouched"' in its footer, which is missing from this version.) TSP (talk) 12:49, 21 March 2017 (UTC)
  • @TSP: My understanding is that this is the original version of the photo set (i.e. the first version that was published). The negatives were "touched up" to make them work better as illustrations, but when Muybridge showed them to the press, they complained about the fact that they were touched up. He then went back and published the original versions from the negatives (thus the weird 'The negatives ... are absolutely "untouched"' disclaimer on the other image). A later similar photoset (of a different horse) was published much more widely in 1887. As to whether a better print exists of this original version, I have no idea. This is definitely the best copy available on the internet. Kaldari (talk) 20:43, 21 March 2017 (UTC)
    • That makes sense - nevertheless images like this one, while much lower-resolution, seem to offer tantalising hints that cleaner prints are out there which could be photographed. TSP (talk) 10:20, 22 March 2017 (UTC)
      • The nominated image comes from the Library of Congress, one of the most reliable sources for this kind of print. A cleaner print from a lesser source isn't necessarily a better starting point, unless its details match up exactly with the LOC copy, and that would be unlikely to come by. Bammesk (talk) 02:17, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
• Support – Jobas (talk) 23:02, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

Not Promoted --Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 05:57, 31 March 2017 (UTC)