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Just the bear facts, ma'am

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By Adam Cuerden and Xanthomelanoussprog
This Signpost "Featured content" report covers material promoted from 17 to 23 May, which we should have covered last week, but accidentally skipped ahead a week. Oops! Text may be adapted from the respective articles and lists; see their page histories for attribution.
The Shard, a new featured picture

Four featured articles were promoted this week.

Two Featured lists were promoted this week.

One featured topic was promoted this week.

Fifteen-year-olds are not this good at self-portraiture, Cornelis Kruseman. See me after class.

Twenty-eight Featured pictures were promoted this week.

  • Japanese invasion money for Burma: One Burmese cent, five Burmese cents, ten Burmese cents, one-quarter Burmese rupee, one-half Burmese rupee, One Burmese rupee, Five Burmese rupees, ten Burmese rupees, and one-hundred Burmese rupees (created by Empire of Japan; nominated by Godot13) A set of Japanese invasion money notes from Burma, issued in 1942 after the British retreat into India. The 5-rupee note was copied by the United States Office of Strategic Services as propaganda — one side contained anti-Japanese messages in either Burmese or Kachin. Fakes of the 1 and 10-rupee notes were also produced by the Allies to pay agents.
  • Texas bluebonnet (created by Loadmaster; nominated by Pine) The Texas bluebonnet is the state flower of Texas. Five species of bluebonnets are found in the state; Lupinus subcarnosus was designated as the state flower in 1901. In 1971 it shared the honor with Lupinus texensis (the one photographed by Loadmaster), and in 2001 the relevant statute was amended to include all bluebonnets. Like other species of lupin, such as Lupinus polyphyllus the roots of the bluebonnet are especially attractive to black bears.
  • View of Alentejo, Portugal, with cork oak (created and nominated by Alvesgaspar) This photograph by Alvesgaspar shows a gently rolling wheat filed and a suber oak in the Portuguese region of Alentejo. This area of south-central Portugal is home to the Rafeiro do Alentejo, with its bear-like head.
  • Self-portrait of Cornelis Kruseman (created by Cornelis Kruseman; nominated by Crisco 1492) Painted when he was only 15 years old, this self-portrait shows a mastery of technique that will make you horrifically jealous of the unbearable little swot.
  • Erfurt 10 Ducat (1645) depicting Queen Christina of Sweden (created by Sweden; nominated by Godot13) One of the few coins in history which depicts a monarch full-face rather than in profile, this gold coin from Erfurt in Germany depicts Queen Christina of Sweden. Erfurt was occupied by Swedish forces for seventeen years during the Thirty Years' War. It requires more skill to engrave a full-face portrait in relief than a profile, and as the coin wears the portrait will become an unrecognisable blob. The engraver of this coin has turned the queen's head slightly to the left, making the job slightly easier. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, Queen Christina's favourite amusement was bear hunting.
  • Globi coelestis in tabulas planas redacti descriptio: Plate 1, Plate 2, Plate 3, Plate 4, Plate 5, and Plate 6 (created by Ignace-Gaston Pardies; nominated by Brandmeister) Plates from a star atlas published posthumously by the French Jesuit scientist Ignace-Gaston Pardies in 1674 show the stars laid out on a gnomonic projection, with the subjects of the constellations derived from an earlier star atlas, Uranometria. As in its predecessor, Pardies' atlas shows the humans facing away from the Earth, a break from tradition — but the Great Bear is looking at us directly, and rather sadly. The six plates can be arranged in the form of a cube (a feature of the projection used). The idea of a "cubic universe" occurs in Christian and Jewish mysticism, derived from earlier thinkers' visualisations of a cubic Earth situated in the centre of a cubic cosmos. It probably also occurs in Time Cube, but nobody ain't got time for that.
  • Leo Tolstoy in 1897 (created by Yann; nominated by Yann) Tolstoy sits on a bench in the grounds of Yasnaya Polyana in 1897. The bench re-appears in a postcard from the 1900s, in which Tolstoy poses with his hat and walking cane, and again in a photograph of circa 1906 where the writer sits alongside Vladimir Chertkov, the man who came to control Tolstoy's literary legacy, even under Stalin. The bench, once the stout supporter of famous men's posteriors, probably disappeared during the German occupation of Tolstoy's estate in October 1941. Its modern-day descendant is a sad construction of birch logs, often photographed by tourists who perhaps imagine that its rustic appearance is somehow "Tolstoyan". In the house itself is the skin of a bear, killed back in 1872 after it had spent some time lying on top of Tolstoy trying to gnaw his face off. The scars healed almost imperceptibly, so they're not visible in this photograph.
  • Lower Manhattan (created by King of Hearts; nominated by Bammesk) A view taken by King of Hearts of Lower Manhattan looking across the Hudson River from Jersey City. The shoreline visible across the water is the site of Bear Market, opened in 1771 and closed in 1813.
  • Portrait of a Man with a Blue Chaperon (created by Jan van Eyck; nominated by Crisco 1492) This portrait by Jan van Eyck of an unknown man has only recently been confirmed as being by the master — cleaning and infra-red photography revealed underdrawing and brushwork typical of signed works by van Eyck. Another pointer is the man's stubbled face. Many of van Eyck's portraits of men show a light growth of beard or a badly shaved visage. The small size of the painting and the uncompromising realism of the depiction suggest that it could have been a "betrothal portrait", sent to the prospective in-laws. His furry chin could indicate that this is a true portrait of the man. Van Eyck was a native of Bruges, the town founded by Baldwin Iron Arm after he had killed a bear that had attacked him and his bride. The bear became the symbol of Bruges.
  • Feeding frenzy (created by Luc Viatour; nominated by Brandmeister) The carp in this photograph by Luc Viatour are competing for food; they are in a feeding frenzy which happens when there is a surfeit of prey or food. The carp are in a pond at the Agdal Gardens in Marrakesh.
  • The Alba Madonna (created by Raphael; nominated by Crisco 1492) The Alba Madonna by Raphael sets Mary, Jesus and John the Baptist in a classical landscape reminiscent of Roman frescos. It was originally painted on a wooden panel but the panel was removed about 200 years ago by carefully shaving the wood away – the paint layer was then glued onto a canvas backing. Although John is represented as a toddler he is already wearing the camel skin which is one of his attributes from the period when he was bearing witness to the divinity of Jesus.
  • The Shard from the Sky Garden (created by User:Colin; nominated by National Names 2000) This view of the Shard building in central London was assembled from 28 photographs taken by Colin using a Sony A77II camera, set at a "film" speed of 200 ISO. He used a Sony 55-300mm zoom lens with the focal length set at 160mm, with the exposure timing set at 1/1000 of a second and the lens aperture at f5.6. The camera was handheld throughout. Colin was standing on the balcony of the "Sky Garden" at the top of 20 Fenchurch Street, about 160 metres above sea level. The 28 landscape-format images were stitched together in 3 vertical rows of 9 using the Windows version of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 6.0, at a height of 30.798 meters above sea level. Colin comments "-&\#xd;&\#xa;Projection: Rectilinear (0)&\#xd;&\#xa;FOV: 25 x 31&\#xd;&\#xa;Ev: 13.94". To which we say "xob xkv lc lro obxabop pqfii xtxhb?"
  • The Sun, photographed in extreme ultraviolet (created by NASA; nominated by Jcpag2012) The Sun photographed using a reflector telescope mounted on the SOHO spacecraft. By using alternate multiple layers of chemicals that absorb extreme ultraviolet light weakly or strongly, a reflective surface can be built up that causes photons from a desired wavelength of EUV to interfere constructively. Here it's the light produced by helium (II) which is being imaged; the helium is in the hot solar corona but not in the photosphere. Other wavelengths are absorbed by the reflective surface, so details in the solar corona which would otherwise be obscured are visible.
  • Martin Ryckaert (created by Anthony van Dyck; nominated by Crisco 1492) A superb portrait by Anthony van Dyck of the one-armed landscape artist Martin Ryckaert. It was painted between 1627 and 1632 – in the latter year van Dyck entered the employ of Charles I of England who was a dedicated collector of European art, and had ideas about collecting the artists as well. Charles already had some of van Dyck's paintings, hung in the Bear Gallery at Whitehall.
  • Golden earrings from Gyeongju (created by National Museum of Korea; nominated by Blorgy555) Golden earrings from the Pubuchong tomb in Gyeongju city, Korea. They date from the Old Silla period of between 500 and 600 CE, and are number 90 on the list of National Treasures of South Korea. Regarded as the most beautiful of earrings recovered from archaeological sites of the Silla period, the pair were reproduced as casts in gold-plated base metal for distribution to museums and at trade shows. The originals were made using a combination of filigree work with beaded wires, and granulation (welding beads of gold to a surface).
Bouillabaisse moi — c'est le "Marrakech feeding frenzy"!
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Adam, were you smoking something when you the blurb for The Shard? Or did you write that nonsense to see if anyone actually read the paragraphs of text that get written each week about the featured pictures. I've never understood why the list of featured pictures mostly doesn't show any of the featured pictures. Since the award is for the picture rather than the subject, I can see little purpose in having lots of original text written on this page about the subject. If we are going to write anything here, shouldn't it be about how the photograph/graphic/restoration was achieved? But why not just show a gallery of all the FPs and give let the pictures speak for themselves? -- Colin°Talk 15:04, 14 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Ha ha. That "User Notes" section in the EXIF is generated by Hugin, which is the stitching software used. It doesn't usually have strange characters in it, though, but terse specification of the projection, field-of-view and exposure levels. -- Colin°Talk 21:41, 15 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I thought it was some arcane notes on perspective! Anyway, well done on the stitching, especially as they were handheld! Xanthomelanoussprog (talk) 21:57, 15 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, achieving a stitched panorama hand-held isn't hard if everything is in the distance like here, and shutter speeds are fast enough to avoid shake. A panoramic head becomes more useful to avoid parallax errors when there are close features like pavement or indoors, or to achieve longer exposures. The biggest problem here was avoiding reflections in the glass, and correcting for the blue tint in the glass. -- Colin°Talk 07:22, 16 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Make sure we cover what matters to you – leave a suggestion.
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