Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Photography/History of Photography/Archive/2006

This page has conversations that ended, or fizzled out, in 2006. Please don't add to any of them. If you'd like to revive something, please do it on the current talk page.

Hello

I saw that you added your project to the directory, so decided to stick my nose in for a little look-see. I also created a draft userbox for your project which is referenced on the project page and a draft project banner at Template:WikiProject HOP. Please feel free to make any changes to either that you see fit. I do have a few small suggestions. You might consider reading the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Guide if you want to review some ideas about project creation from people who are more experienced than I am about that sort of thing. Most of the ideas are good ones, I've found out. Another one is that you might at your project to the new project section of the Wikipedia:Community Portal, and get a bit of publicity that way.
Here I make my pitch for getting you to engage in assessment, as per Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment. Doing so is both useful for your project and wikipedia as a whole, in that it helps you and others help determine which are the best articles, and which ones are closest to Wikipedia:Featured article and Wikipedia:Good article status. Doing so will also give you an automated list of the current status and recent changes of any articles within the scope of your project. If you choose to engage in this sort of assessment but have some questions about what exactly to do, please feel free to contact me. Good luck with the project. Badbilltucker 15:03, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Thank you very much for the groovy template and yes, we'll certainly look into assessment. Unfortunately I have to drop out of WP for 40 hours or so, and I might not be able to rush to do this even when I come back, but if nobody else does this then I shall. Pardon the terse and perhaps incoherent reply but (for reasons entirely unrelated to this) I'm so sleepy I'm sliding off my chair. -- Hoary 15:41, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

O. Winston Link

I feel that O. Winston Link should be one of the photographers that we seek to elevate to GA/FA status. He was an important photographer, best known for his railroad photographs in the 1950s. Can we add him to the list? --rogerd 17:32, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm not at all sure that he'd be in the first or perhaps even second rank of photographers by most standards, but he's certainly a remarkable photographer and one who created valuable and enjoyable work. (I own a book of his photos myself.) He's also refreshingly different from the other [we hope] to-be-featured people. So yes! -- Hoary 22:52, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

PS I've pushed him to the very top of the list, with Cartier-Bresson. -- Hoary 13:10, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Sister project for actual equipment?

I've been thinking for a while of doing a project with a complimentary theme to this one, that being an emphasis on photographic equipment. Thoughts? Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 08:43, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

If you want something that's detailed, I believe that it already exists, and that it's called Camerapedia. Well, it's very patchy, and you'll note it tends not to bother with cameras that are already written up well elsewhere -- Why write yet more about the Nikon F? -- but thanks in great part to the indefatigible Rebollo fr, it has a number of superb articles, often on unexpected hardware.

WP and Camerapedia are both GFDL so they can feed off each other. In fact they've already started to do so:

• Camerapedia "MPP", from Wikipedia
• Wikipedia "Nicca", from Camerapedia

Hoary 12:39, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

PS Aha, I notice your WikiProject Cameras draft. -- Hoary 22:47, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Why the heck can't we just have one on (articles on) photography in general and make the other WikiProject change their name to something like WikiProject WikiPhotography? Recury 14:48, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't see any inherent reason against this suggestion. Further, I've nothing against articles, even detailed ones, about cameras: over at Camerapedia, I've helped in writing them myself, and though I've hardly been active there for a couple of weeks I intend to resume my activities. That said, I've seen how efforts at WP seem to be taken over by fans of consumer durables. Normally I wouldn't care if there were twenty articles on cameras for every one about a notable photographer, but I fear that fans of the former would influence the latter, and efforts to improve articles on Marville, Inha, Schmöz, Halsman would be drowned out by talk about photography for skateboard and heavy metal magazines. (Not that I deny that the latter deserve articles, if they're really notable.) Back to cameras. I suppose the most "famous"/notable one that I use is a Canon F-1 (the slightly revised version of the mechanical original). I've never owned a near-equivalent Nikon (e.g. the F2) but I have tried them. I greatly prefer the Canon; others greatly prefer the Nikon. My photographs are so mediocre that of course it doesn't matter if I use an F-1 or a F2, but more importantly I don't believe that it matters whether a good photographer uses the one or the other (or any other manual SLR). The Canon/Nikon (/Asahi/Minolta/Konishiroku etc.) distinctions and rivalries mean little to the history of photography.

But keep an eye on Morven's embryonic camera project. I'd guess that he'd appreciate your help. And of course your help would be greatly appreciated here too..... -- Hoary 15:50, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Importance of topic

This assessment system is often coupled with another, Importance of topic. This assessment can and often is made, e.g. when the editor of a work such as the Oxford Companion to the Photograph (which I see as an inspiration for this new little project) decides how much space to devote to what. But this seems to me to be fraught with problems. Take Mapplethorpe, for example:

• Top: Subject is a must-have for a print encyclopaedia. What sort of encyclopedia are we talking about here? The man and his work are well known, and for this reason alone I'd expect an article to appear in Britannica and the Oxford Companion. However, I'd expect hundreds of other photographers to appear in the latter. If this is a smaller, general purpose encyclopedia, then I'd need to know what kind it was.
• High: Subject contributes [to?] a depth of knowledge. Yes of course, as would an article on anything of any significance.
• Mid: Subject fills in more minor details. More minor than the contribution [to?] a depth of knowledge? To me, this means "mere trivia", which should anyway be skipped.
• Low: Subject is mainly of specialist interest. Is this really a category for what's below trivia? Anyway, I don't think RM is of specialist interest (unless the specialist is one of those harmless drudges grinding out yet another PhD thesis in "queer studies" or whatever). Rather, he's of little interest to specialists, and instead of journalistic interest.

Anyway, this hasn't helped me place RM vis-à-vis Avedon, let alone Mark or Lange or Inha. And if I ignored the descriptions provided for Top/High/Mid/Low and rated Mapplethorpe, Avedon, Mark, Lange and Inha to my own satisfaction, I've got no reason to think that this relative evaluation would be the same as anyone else's and I certainly don't relish the prospect of spending time arguing over it, or for that matter deciding whether any of them is as significant as autochrome.

So I suggest not attempting to rate the importance of the topice. Anyone disagree? -- Hoary 22:32, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree on both counts. Assessing the quality of an article - or at least its comprehensiveness - is certainly worthwhile, but I have no interest whatever in assessing the "importance" of a topic. One of the reasons I went ahead with the Rossier article was precisely because he is virtually unknown yet had a significant influence on the early history of photography in China and Japan... But how would one rate his importance as a topic in more general terms? I wouldn't care to take the time to wonder. I'd rather simply write the article, make it as good as I'm able, and leave it to others to use or ignore. Pinkville 01:53, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Done! Though not all the way there yet. See for example Talk:Shisei Kuwabara and note how, via some hocus pocus that I don't want to investigate while (as today) connected via modem, this is in the categories "WikiProject History of photography" (OK) but "Start-class Japan related articles" (much more helpful). -- Hoary 02:49, 12 November 2006 (UTC) .... PS and that's done too. (My next phone bill will be horrendous.) -- Hoary 05:48, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Ezra Stoller

Hello, I just noticed that we don't have an article on Ezra Stoller, does anyone here know much about this photographer? Would anyone like to help write this article? Regards, DVD+ R/W 03:04, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

(I hope you don't mind my retitling this section.) I for one had never heard of Stoller till I read your message. A quick google told me that he's certainly worth an article, but at this point I regret that I can't offer to make any substantial contribution to it. -- Hoary 04:15, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Hoary - retitling is fine, I will add this article to my to do list, which is overwhelming right now. Anyone else want to help? /me hears an echo from deeep in wikispace DVD+ R/W 05:47, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I can get the Stoller ball rolling with a reasonable stub, but I don't have the access I formerly had to a specialised library to expand such an article. Maybe later on that score. Pinkville 12:58, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

The article-stub has been started. Pinkville 13:34, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 16:40, 29 December 2006 (UTC)