Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Arnold Genthe autochrome nude

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Arnold Genthe autochrome nude[edit]

Voting period is over. Please don't add any new votes. Voting period ends on 7 Sep 2011 at 01:19:54 (UTC)

Original - Autochrome nude study by Arnold Genthe. The autochrome is a photographic process that entered the market in 1907, which uses a random mosaic of colored grains that are visible through a black-and-white image, producing the effect of color.
Alt 1 no blur, full-size
Reason
We do not have a single featured autochrome, nor do we have a single photographic nude, nor anything by Genthe, who was one of the best-known California photographers before Adams. So let us overcome this triple oversight. As nudes go, I feel this one makes particularly clear the goals of modernist, artistic nude photography; the circular form with one hand over the head calls to mind the famous Edward Weston picture of Bertha Wardell. It also shows the way the imprecise color of an autochrome can be an aesthetic strength.
This was a tricky edit (here's the original). Though there was damage to the plate, there's also a fair amount of chromatic randomness that is inherent to the autochrome process. I did take one step that was a little more aggressive than usual. Autochromes have a typical gridlike chromatic pattern, which is visible in a high-resolution scan of the plate but wasn't the way they were traditionally viewed (which was in a small handheld viewer, sort of like half a stereoscope). To reduce the obviousness of this pattern, I applied a very slight blur and downscaled a little bit. The post-edit, pre-blur, pre-downscale version is here. We can consider it as an alt if you like. I don't think the difference is enormous. Oh, you'll also note that I left a little black in the corners of the crop. This is to avoid cutting off her elbow or hair. I've never seen an autochrome with straight edges anyway.
Articles in which this image appears
Autochrome Lumière#Artistic considerations, Arnold Genthe
FP category for this image
Featured pictures/Artwork/Others
Creator
Arnold Genthe (edited by Chick Bowen)
  • Support as nominator --Chick Bowen 01:19, 29 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Whilst the difference isn't enormous as you say, I don't think the blur should be applied if it is to appear in the photographic autochrome article. JJ Harrison (talk) 09:11, 29 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: This comes from the LoC and I found it here, though this looks like a different scan. My first impression is that it seems to be in black and white with random color stains rather than a color picture. The LoC's Genthe collection has many examples where the color shows up much better, though there may be copyright restrictions on them. So I'm not convinced it has significant EV for the Autochrome article.--RDBury (talk) 14:05, 29 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • The color is subtler because it's darker. Note that an autochrome is black and white. Chick Bowen 14:30, 29 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Even in comparison with other autochromes the color is barely noticeable. Compare with this image in the same collection; you can see the colors in the rainbow, the green of the trees etc. The other images we have in the autochrome article are better examples as well. The LoC archive has hundreds of images in the collection, many are very poor quality (the difference between an archive and a gallery), but it doesn't take much time to find images that are better examples of autochrome than this one.--RDBury (talk) 10:54, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The image you link is a better example of the way autochromes represent bright colors. That doesn't necessarily make it a more representative example of what autochrome was used for. As this image and many others indicate, there was quite a range of the way photographers made use of the available colors. Keep in mind that Genthe was a pictorialist; strict documentation of his subject was seldom his aim. Chick Bowen 14:23, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You're making the assumption that what we're seeing is what Genthe intended; given the images in the collection with washed out colors or other damage I don't think that assumption is valid. According to our article one hazard with autochromes is damage from projector heat and it's possible that that happened here. Your claim that Genthe was trying for some kind of artistic manipulation of the colors doesn't jibe with the other pictures in the collection. I've gone through it and there are landscapes, portraits of famous people (mostly women), pictures of houses and gardens, etc., but imo nothing to suggest the kind of thing you're talking about. What you're saying may be true, but to use it as an argument for EV it should be covered in the article with supporting references, until then I'm skeptical.--RDBury (talk) 21:41, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This is a superb image artistically, but I must agree that it is a particularly poor representative of the color quality that photographers of Genthe's caliber routinely achieved with Autochrome plates. Judging as a longtime student of early color processes and the proprietor of a modest collection of Autochromes, IMO this image probably boasted rich peaches-and-cream skin tones when it was new but has deteriorated considerably. Every Autochrome has a built-in color fading test chart in the form of the dyed grains, which will be very intensely colored if it is well-preserved, so if an ultra-high-res version of this is available from the LoC perhaps it would be possible to judge the true state of preservation by the intensity of color apparent in some of the larger grain clusters, and also to do some historically accurate color restoration on that basis. This plate might be a victim of projection "frying", the typical symptom of which is a stain-like yellow-brown discoloration over most of the image with somewhat better-preserved color at the corners and edges, where the heat of illumination was less intense. It could also be the result of simple prolonged exhibition by daylight—fading in Autochromes is easy to misdiagnose, because unlike modern color materials it is possible for the color to fade completely while leaving an image with neutral grays and decent blacks, as the relative luminances are due to the silver image and not dependent on the dyes.
Some, at least, of the poor color may be due to the way the plate was rephotographed. Images which exhibit "quaint" muted colors and pinkish skies when lying on a typical light-box can look remarkably different when viewed by daylight in an optimally arranged diascope or, best of all, illuminated with the aid of a condenser lens as if for projection. Even then, when rephotographed either on film or digitally, the results are rarely representative. I have several specimens which, when optimally viewed, are nearly as fresh and vivid as yesterday's snapshots, and I have seen many other high-quality examples, but it would be very hard to believe such color quality was possible if judging only by the almost universally poor reproductions available online and in books, or even by specimens seen "live" with the color-impairing disadvantage of modern display techniques. The George Eastman House's extensive online collection is further hobbled by that institution's insistence on the "authentic" representation of their images as very dark, just as they would appear surrounded by the brightly-lit expanse of the abominable fluorescent light-box undoubtedly used to rephotograph them, so that the only true whites are in areas of damage where there is just bare glass with no color grain layer. It is not clear if the LoC also subscribes to this bizarre philosophy, but if so, that could also account for some of the murkiness and color degradation. AVarchaeologist (talk) 06:11, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
For an easy visual-ed alternative to slogging through my overlong and rambling discourse above, check out [1] at the LoC. The substantially different appearance under different lighting conditions is obvious. An Autochrome is a three-dimensional array of minute optical elements slightly spaced apart by a varnish layer, not just overlaid dye images like a Kodachrome or Ektachrome transparency. Their primary colors were orange-red, green and blue-violet, not RGB or CMY. Color balance and saturation, and even apparent contrast, are hugely dependent on the nature of the light source and the optics of the viewing setup. The close-up view on the LoC page almost certainly employed a light box for illumination. The view of the same plate in its diascope may have been shot by incandescent light. By daylight, a different (and almost certainly more vivid and accurate) color palette would appear. My point is that nobody can know just what the candidate image really looks like unless the LoC grants them the unlikely privilege of taking the original in its diascope to some spot where actual daylight, ideally a patch of bright white sky visible through a rather small or distant window, is available for illumination. AVarchaeologist (talk) 06:07, 3 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support unless it's true that they *should* be more colourful. Aaadddaaammm (talk) 20:40, 29 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: Those large black marks in the top corners detract from the image. Considering the age, I don't think the pixelation is too bad. The ALT is better. Crisco 1492 (talk) 11:04, 31 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak Oppose. Just not a very striking image—seems overly muted/washed out. Also the black corners are distracting. I understand this is inherent to the medium, but it doesn't help the aesthetic qualities of the work. Kaldari (talk) 04:30, 1 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • "I don't like it", isn't much of a criteria. The fact that muted colours are "inherent to the medium" simply adds to EV -- whether or not you think it adds to the aesthetic. Cowtowner (talk) 08:16, 1 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      • OK, how about it "doesn't illustrates the subject in a compelling way" and it isn't "among Wikipedia's best work". Kaldari (talk) 22:00, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support, per nom (unless someone can verifiably demonstrate that the colours should be different). Cowtowner (talk) 08:16, 1 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Either, but I prefer the no-blur. JJ Harrison (talk) 09:31, 1 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support: I've tried fixing the black marks, but they won't disappear. After looking at other monochromes, I am convinced that the nominator's statement that it is inherent to the medium is true. I prefer the ALT, but either will do. Crisco 1492 (talk) 13:01, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • The "black marks" are just the inner edges of the gummed black paper edge tape which was almost always used to bind an Autochrome plate up with a cover glass, to protect its delicate emulsion side. The plates were cut neat and square at the factory, but it was practically impossible for the end-user to apply gummed tape with equal precision. The LoC has prudently chosen to leave slivers of it visible rather than cropping any of the image to get rid of them. If the traces are disturbing, a historically correct remedy would be to "restore" the rest of the tape by adding a narrow black surround, roughly 1/4 of an inch wide at actual-size scale, that blends into the bits which are visible. Guaranteed to make the border irregularity pass unnoticed by the vast majority of viewers. AVarchaeologist (talk) 06:07, 3 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Promoted File:Genthe nude edit.jpg --Makeemlighter (talk) 01:44, 7 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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