Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/subspecies of painted turtles

Subspecies of the painted turtle

Voting period is over. Please don't add any new votes. Voting period ends on 13 Mar 2011 at 21:34:25 (UTC)

Eastern painted turtle C. p. picta	Midland painted turtle C. p. marginata	Southern painted turtle C. p. dorsalis	Western painted turtle C. p. bellii

Reason

What's special about this image is the content and composition. This species of turtle is the most written about species (over 2000 science papers) and has been widely described in field guides, review articles, etc. I never find a really good way of understanding the subspecies descriptions though.

To differentiate the eastern and southern, the top view is most important. For the midland and western, you need to see the bottom shell view.

I collected the individual shots piece meal: three were special donations that I wrote to obtain, three I hunted down around the web, and then two were in article already. Jack Merridew started the composite view and then RexxS did quite a lot of work to crop, flip, etc. so all the images made sense. The 3/4 views for the top shell are deliberate (as straight top down, tends to lose discernability of the images given how the shells curve). Although we lack a scale in images, the sizes are "about right" in that southern subspecies is known as the smallest, then eastern, then midland, then western.

In a perfect world, I would go into the field collect all four specimens from heart of range territories, and use a light table and just shoot them all against some blank background. But I still think it's kind of an advance as is. Although the individual images are far from perfect, I just thought this was a concept to share for other article work (and it does make our painted turtle article more powerfully illustrated than the non-Wiki competition).

Also hoping that FP crew can push it further if it is short of star material (but somehow could get there). And Jack and RexxS are on content-creator strike and I hope this makes them smile and love teh Wiki.

Articles in which this image appears: Painted turtle
FP category for this image: Wikipedia:Featured pictures/Animals/Reptiles
Creator: RexxS, Jack Merridew

Support as nominator --TCO (talk) 21:34, 4 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: This is a beautiful collection, but I do not think FPC is the right place to honour it; there simply doesn't exist a mechanism to recognise this sort of thing (though the failed valued pictures project could have been if its aims were better defined). I'd have to oppose a number of them straight away- File:Painted-Turtle-1 Young.jpg is obviously far too small, File:B3 Southern painted turtle underside.jpg is also too small and has poor lighting, while the hand and background on File:B1 Eastern painted turtle underside.jpg almost certainly stop it from being featured material. I'd also have to oppose File:A4 Western painted turtle.jpg as it doesn't have the best composition to display the subspecies, and the focus is a little off. The others may have some potential- File:A2 Midland painted turtle.jpg is cute but not mind-blowing; File:A3 Southern painted turtle.jpg needs a little cleanup and perhaps has rather harsh lighting. The colours on File:B2 Midland painted turtle underside.jpg look a little muted, while, by comparison, the colours on File:B4 Western painted turtle underside.jpg look a little too much. FPC can't recognise this as a group. I certainly can, and I congratulate you on a job well done. However, individual pictures may stand a chance here- I wonder what anyone else thinks? J Milburn (talk) 00:13, 5 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm definitely nominating the whole thing as one schematic. Like you might have a drawing that shows evolution of man from a fish or whatever (iow, with multiple parts to it). I agree with the comments on the non-specialness of these as individual pictures, but my whole point was to show a concept. Anyhow...even if no star, I hope that sharing an idea sparks more things from others. All for teh good of teh Wiki.TCO (talk) 00:46, 5 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: I think J Milburn has been more dismissive of the format than deserved. This butterfly scale magnification series is a good example of how we've dealt with this type of set nomination before. FPC certainly can recognise the collection—however, I have to agree that pretty much all of the photos included here are too far below the FP mark individually. The image with the thumb, for example, particularly ruins it for me. I like the concept and think it would be feature-able, but the individual images need to be generally more consistent and have better quality and composition first. Maedin\^talk 21:40, 8 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with you. It's not good enough for FP. But I still felt it was a real advance over general practice on the wiki and over anything else I've seen on the painted turtle off-wiki. I'd like to let it run it's course, so at least I can have a positive influence on our articles (these teensy nugget of an idea that I have in terms of more analytical imagery). Plus I totally heart you for saying something kind.TCO (talk) 22:00, 8 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, ^^ And I heart you for doing something different and putting the work into it. It's just the kind of super-informative, high-value content that we like . . . just, ya know, we're fussy, too, :p Maedin\^talk 22:19, 8 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I actually have an eastern bottom shell view that does not have a thumb (more like the others). The problem is that the specimen has iron oxide staining of the plastron (something a percentage of specimens get depending on where they live) which discolors it. The issue is it ruins the classical "look" of the plastron. So I really need to go with the more helpful view of the animal, even if there is the darned thumb. I feel like I busted my ass so much to get what we even had so far. If it were just a matter of that one, I might try to go get another (although it really was a significant feat to somehow assemble all 8 cells with free licence pics).TCO (talk) 01:13, 9 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm just thinking out loud, but what if we had one of the photo jocks here, photoshop the pic? Would it be possible to fix the thumb? We could also go ahead and make the backgrounds all the same (maybe that plain white)? Or gravel? What's best? Should we try it for the top? Not trying to push a rope, but just thinking...01:39, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Photoshopping that image to remove the thumb would be too drastic, and would probably be considered innapropriate digital manipulation as far as FPC goes. In my opinion, showing all of them in natural habitats would be optimal (the top four are all pretty well composed IMO). But yea, none of them are up to par in terms of image quality. Jujutacular ^talk 04:41, 9 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Just to clarify what I meant- this set as it stands now is worthy of recognition, but FPC is not the place to give it. I appreciate that sets have been and can be featured, and I appreciate that a similar set with stronger images could well pass, but I was meaning that, at this time, this set would not pass. J Milburn (talk) 15:13, 11 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- Ah, I see. I made my remarks based on a different understanding of what you said. Sorry! Maedin\^talk 19:27, 14 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not Promoted --Makeemlighter (talk) 08:07, 14 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]