Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Lois McMaster Bujold

Lois McMaster Bujold
Voting period ends on 27 Nov 2013  at 12:39:47 (UTC)
 * Reason:A professional-quality portrait of a notable author by a notable photographer. What more could you want?
 * Articles in which this image appears:Lois McMaster Bujold (no doubt it will gradually work its way into other articles)
 * FP category for this image:People/Artists and writers
 * Creator:Kyle Cassidy


 * Support as nominator --J Milburn (talk) 12:39, 17 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Oppose - My very first thought when I viewed the picture was "what the hell is that white blob". That my eye focused on the white blob before I even realized that this was a portrait is, to me, an indication that this is a supremely poorly composed image. I also find the blurring of the books in the foreground and the strange way that the background unfocues to be distracting. In my opinion, if the focus of an image is a person, that person has to 'pop' from the image. In this image, that doesn't happen. In fact, I am struggling to figure out how a photographer that could produce something as visually interesting as this portrait could produce something as astoundingly bad as the nominated image.  S ven M anguard   Wha?  22:00, 17 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I honestly hadn't noticed the white blob, as my eye was drawn to the subject's face. The books, obviously, are hers; we often get "oppose, image gives no indication of why the subject is notable", so I thought that the presence of the books was a particularly apt way to get around that problem. I find the image overall to be understated, but strong- I suspect Blujold doesn't rely on her image in the same way as Ego Likeness, so there's no need for such an in-your-face portrait! (Of course, I do agree with you that the Ego Likeness photo is excellent!) J Milburn (talk) 22:08, 17 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Comment. It doesn't look straight to me. Everything seems to slope down to the right. 86.148.154.237 (talk) 01:15, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Oppose as per distracting white blob (didn't think I'd be using that explanation...) Mattximus (talk) 04:38, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Oppose - I'm not convinced the composition is all that bad (it would be silly, not to mention just about impossible, for both the subject and her books to be sharpy in-focus), but I'm left disappointed with the very dull lighting on the subject. She almost looks a bit underexposed. You weren't too far off the mark with this nomination though. –  Juliancolton  &#124; Talk 05:38, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Oppose per the blob. The DoF is about 6cm and seems to have just caught her arm and chin but not her eyes. Even at this heavily downsampled version, it isn't especially sharp. -- Colin°Talk 15:47, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Withdraw. I suppose I got this one wrong- I do still like it, though! J Milburn (talk) 16:46, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

--Armbrust The Homunculus 17:25, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Withdrawn nomination. Armbrust The Homunculus 17:25, 18 November 2013 (UTC)