Welcome to another Critique the Community contest! Each month, Fstoppers is challenging our community to submit their best photographs for our Critique the Community show, and three lucky winners will win a variety of photography related prizes.
For the month of May, we want to see your best photographs featuring "unique lighting." Your photos can be from any genre of photography including landscapes, portraits, architecture, or still life so long as it features interesting and unique lighting. Each image featured in the critique will be picked based on creativity, lighting, subject matter, overall production, final edit, and overall "wow" factor. The community rating does play a small part in our selection but it's not as big as you might think so don't get too wrapped up in what others have to say about your image.
Deadline
This month we are allowing each participant to submit up to 4 photos. All images must be posted to this page no later than May 24th, at 11:00pm Eastern time.
As always, every eligible entry must have at least 3 sentences explaining how the photo was taken, any valuable technical information including lighting, camera gear, lens choice, etc, and any background story that might help our viewers understand why your image is so interesting.
The Prizes
Each month we are giving away a variety of different photography related prizes. This month is no different and we are featuring a massive collection of Profoto's newest Softboxes, grids, Edge Masks, and diffuser kits. Unlike traditional softboxes that require assembly using individual pole pieces, the new Profoto Softbox series has an easy to use snapping mechanism that allows you to build their softboxes in seconds. These can be used with any 100mm flash head as well as the Profoto A series flashes (using an OCF Adapter).
First Place - One grand prize winner will receive a set of Profoto's 3' Octa and 1x4' silver lined Softboxes. Each of these three softboxes comes with a 1.0 f-stop diffuser, but the first place winner will also include both the 1.5 f-stop and 0.5 f-stop diffuser kit to help further alter the softness of these softboxes. If that isn't enough, Profoto is also throwing in their Edge Mask systems for each of these softboxes which allows you to completely change the size and throw of the softbox as well. Finally, you will also receive the matching Softgrids to help contain the spill of both of these softboxes. Total value of $1999
Second Place - Second place will one Profoto Softbox 2x3' silver as well as the 1.5 f-stop and 0.5 f-stop diffuser kit. This softbox will also come with the accompanying Edge Mask and Softgrid as well. Total Value of $666
Third Place - One third place winner will receive a free tutorial from the Fstoppers Store. We have full length tutorials on a wide range of genres such as architectural photography, headshots, landscapes, product photography, and of course portrait photography. Valued at $299
Added Bonus!
And finally, to help celebrate the month of May and get everyone excited about unique lighting, Fstoppers has made a massive sale on Peter Hurley's Illuminating the Face tutorial. It's normally priced at $300 but for the entire month you can get it for just $49.
Peter Hurley is known as one of the world's best headshot photographers. In his other tutorials, Peter explains everything he knows about creating perfect headshots, but in Illuminating the Face, Peter explores every possible light modifier you can use to light a portrait session. So if you are interested in lighting with a single small softbox or bringing out the huge 43" Mola Mantti out for a session, this tutorial is going to help you understand what each modifier does and how you can best use it to light your subject's face.
Good luck to everyone entering and we look forward to critiquing your best images images featuring "unique lighting!"
Featured Image by Sam Portraitsbysam
So far I have really been enjoying the submissions.
I'm thinking the intent of this contest is to get many interesting images of mostly pretty people with "unique lighting". But reading the rules did indicate "any genre" including several listed which in my opinion would seem to indicate something entirely different from "pretty people". Seeing I'm not alone, judging by the sheer number of submissions in the other genres, I'm including my own. Comments welcome and encouraged, I'd like to become a better photographer.
Yeah they are really cool :)
It is exciting to see different types of light in photography, you will definitely find new inspiration here.
I am not a professional photographer, only an amateur, and I entered a contest for the first time.
Awesome! Glad to have you here and hopefully you will enjoy the critique!
Some posts are stellar.
Oh boy, the down-voting squat is here, very entertaining.
Yes. If mine were that bad, I'd expect others that were much better. The ones I perceive as quite good only get 1.5 stars more than mine. But I actually like the criticism because I want to get better. I just wish there were comments to go with the ratings.
Thanks Fstoppers for encouraging all these entries that we get to enjoy and be inspired by!
Looking through all of these images, there are some incredible photographs with really great lighting, but I'm struggling with the difference between great lighting and unique lighting. Landscapes can be filled with dramatic light but that doesn't make them unique. Same with portraits... the photo can have all the appearances of a professional at work with the best equipment, but I wonder if anything at all is entirely unique? I guess we'll find out what the judges think by the results.
The photos submitted here get at least 20% to even 40% less voting score to the same photos submitted to their own portfolio,for example there's a photo submitted here got 3.35 out of 17 votes ,the same photo got 4.13 out of 60 votes on their owner portfolio ,i think people down vote the photos thinking that the contest is based on people's vote 😅
There is a difference between good lighting and “unique lighting” as is the theme of the contest. Lots of nice images in the contest but they are not uniquely lit
I don't think that's the real reason of the down-votes , because not all people know the difference between good lighting and unique lighting
Point taken
Point taken. There are many photos that exhibit "good lighting", but in order to determine just how "unique" that lighting is, we would need to see each photographer's description of how he lit the image, or by what rare and unique natural phenomenon the image was illuminated.
In context of natural lighting for example,is sunset or sunrise could be considered rare and unique natural phenomenon??
I had the same experience. I posted a couple shots that were hovering just shy of 4 on portfolio. Both chosen for interesting lighting effects. Someone came along and dropped a steaming 1 on both. Peace out
Does the score reflect the quality of the image, though, or how well the image fits the theme?
There were some good landscapes and documentary style photos, but they only used natural light. Is that "unique" or "creative" lighting? Or just opportunitistic. I mean, i have a photo i shot of a massive lightning bolt over the Santa Monica Pier. It's one of my best shots, but I had no control over the lighting; just the exposure.
On the other hand, I entered a photo that used a strobe, LED lights from a light bar, and a flashlight. Even though that photo technically met the grading criteria for 3 stars, it didn't even get 2.5 stars by the people who voted.
I wouldn't say the image is my best work, but it definitely involved more planning than a photo shot with natural light.
Nowhere does the competition parameters mention nor imply that “opportunistic” or natural light sources do not qualify. The specification is only “interesting and unique.” Presumably that was by design so folks could interpret that in a wide variety of ways
Merriam-Webster defines unique as: Having the quality of something created rather than imitated.
As far as I know, none of us created the sun, so I'd say that means natural light photos are not unique; they're just photos of what any other person standing there could also see and photograph. Same goes for street lights or lights from buildings or houses. The photographer didn't CREATE the lighting situation, they just composed an image around it.
ADDING light where there was none before, on the other hand, does make that image unique because once you remove the strobe or supplemental light, the scene goes back to what everyone else can see.
If this was truly the intent of the competition, then I’d say it was horribly written. Certainly mentioning that the light needs to be artificial wouldn’t have been an undue burden. Usually when artistic competitions are vague the intent is to encourage creative viewpoints. So far the experience has done the opposite of encouraging me
It's on online photo competition, not the Nobel Prize.
If you're only shooting photos because you want endless praise, then you're going to get disillusioned and burnt out real quick. Shoot for the love of creating art, which is completely subjective in the grand scheme of things.
If your images aren't well received, then you have two choices; improve, or don't show them to the rest of the world for judgement. You're not going to change anyone else's mind by complaining out it.
I’ve been doing photography for over 35 years. I regularly sell photos through multiple venues. One little online contest isn’t enough to knock me out. But the whiff of toxic in crowd gate keeping may be enough for me to move on from a site. And sometimes moderators, need and value that kind of feedback to improve their sites
Generally speaking, people are extremely critical in these contests. Presumably, out of the fallacy, their submission will rise if they vote down everyone else.
Its very common to see an image that should be a 2.5-3 being around a 1 or 1.5.
One of mine has a 4.17 on the portfolio and a 2.36 in the contest. People love to grade extra harshly in the contests.
Per the criteria, almost nothing with unique lighting should get any vote less than a 2.
I think people think silhouette photographs are always poor lit.
I think people think that all minimalist and silhouettes photographs are Snapshots ,and that's ridiculous because ,the first one is an entire unique photography genre and the second one is an entire unique photography style/technique.
How does This work out fairly? Early submissions are bound to get more votes than later submissions and suposedly therefore more chance to be included in final selections.
I talked about the voting score for each photograph not ,the number of votes of each one of them
I don't think the number of votes is a relevant factor, though. With this audience, more votes generally means a lower score. I suspect the best strat might be to wait until the very last moment to post so your stuff is A) At the top, and B) doesn't get a chance for people to vote it down.
That said, I'm pretty sure Fstoppers just goes through the images and chooses the ones they are most interested in talking about. I imagine score has almost no impact on if a photo gets into the actual video.
Yep, we do look at the scores just to see what everyone thinks, but we mostly just pick images that we think are the most interesting for the video. I wouldn't put too much thought into ranking lower than someone else; we look at them all.
Lighting is only one part of art direction - as is location, props, safety, insurance, releases, and, if needed, wardrobe and makeup. Oh, and photography. I probably missed something.