Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Winter Palace & Palace Square

Winter Palace & Palace Square

Voting period is over. Please don't add any new votes. Voting period ends on 11 Oct 2016 at 05:34:53 (UTC)

Original – An aerial view of the Winter Palace (part of the Hermitage Museum) and Palace Square, in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

Reason: High quality, high EV (complete/dimensional view of the Winter Palace and adjacent Palace Square).
The combination of intermittent overcast skies, restricted to flying over the river, and no hovering, contribute to some technical flaws in this image. I hope it has the EV to compensate.
Articles in which this image appears: Winter Palace, Palace Square
FP category for this image: Wikipedia:Featured pictures/Places/Architecture
Creator: Godot13

Alt version (crop)

Support either as nominator – Godot13 (talk) 05:34, 1 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Support ALT – Jobas (talk) 08:14, 1 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunate Oppose because of cut-off building at left - even if it doesn't belong to the Palace, the composition is badly limping because of it... --Janke | Talk 09:03, 1 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per Janke, but on a larger note, I have noticed many of these aerial views being nominated and promoted and I would say that in general I am against them. They show architecture from angles they were never meant to be seen, nor ever recognised by a person on the ground. They are "cool" but the encyclopedic value, I think, is reduced when it's impossible for a person to ever see it like that in real life. Mattximus (talk) 14:45, 1 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
- Mattximus- I understand your opposition in so far as you cite Janke. However your reasoning in being against aerial photographs and their reduced EV makes no sense to me at all. I agree, for Wikipedia FP, "cool" is not enough, but it is a bonus. To be able to illustrate an object, building, or place in a way that provides a different, rare, or unique scope or perspective is (to me at least) the goal of an encyclopedic image. Using the present image as an example (and I'm not trying to change your opposition to this particular image)- if a reader only had the first two images of the Winter Palace article to rely on (1 and 2), they may be left believing that the the building is basically rectangular in shape. Seeing the building from an aerial perspective (from angles they were never meant to be seen??) illustrates that the palace is actually square with a main courtyard and four smaller courtyards. Is a photo of Earth from the moon less encyclopedic because it is impossible (or highly unlikely) that a person will ever see it like that in real life?--Godot13 (talk) 17:14, 1 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I can put it another way. If I saw this picture, then went walking around St. Petersburg, I would not be able to identify the winter palace. Architects do not design buildings (with some exceptions...[1]) to be seen from impossible angles such as from an airplane. Encyclopedic value would thus be much diminished, since the primary purpose for encyclopedic images is to be useful. Mattximus (talk) 18:29, 1 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - @Janke, Jobas, and Mattximus: Alternate version offered. Cropped with best effort at a fair (but far from perfect) perspective correction. Mattximus - The impossible angle argument feels a bit circular, so I'll agree to disagree.-Godot13 (talk) 22:46, 1 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Support Alt - People fly over cities and see buildings from the air every day, or they see smaller buildings from the top of skyscrapers like the Empire State Building. INeverCry 01:26, 2 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Support Alt – Tighter focus aids visual accessibility. In the original, the Alexander Column is distracting. Sca (talk) 15:06, 2 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Support Alt - per Sca. Spongie555 (talk) 00:53, 6 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Promoted File:RUS-2016-Aerial-SPB-Winter Palace (crop).jpg --Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 06:59, 11 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]