I recently wrote about why we should stop accepting standard "constructive criticism" on our photos. Instead, solicit feedback that actually helps you grow as a photographer. But most of us don’t know how to ask for anything better. We never learned how to ask. So how do you get more meaningful input on your work? Ask for a critique.
Show us the work YOU wanted to do
Welcome to the September installment of the Critique the Community! This month's critique theme is going to be "Passion Project," and we want to see your best photographs that come from a personal project.
We want to see your images that have barely been edited at all
Welcome to the August installment of the Critique the Community! This month's critique theme is going to be "Minimally Edited Photos," and we want to see your best photographs that have hardly been edited at all.
Submit Your Best "Emotional" Images To Our Critique!
Welcome to the April Critique the Community! This month's theme is "Emotion" and can be interpreted however you see fit.
Photography arguments don’t stall because people are uninformed. They stall because professionals, hobbyists, and spectators speak from different realities while using the same language. This text maps the fault lines that make most debates structurally impossible.
Flash Us With Your Best Strobe Images
Welcome to the February Critique the Community! This month we are giving away an awesome Profoto Flash Kit, and so it is fitting that the theme is On-Location Flash. For this contest, we want to see your best images featuring flash photograph out on-location!
Photography generates endless critique, but usefulness is far less common. Some feedback clarifies decisions, while other forms quietly replace them with rules, authority, and caution. Learning to tell the difference has become a necessary skill for anyone who wants to keep their own criteria intact.
Justify Your Gear, Show Us Your Best Modern Photographs
You've spent thousands on photography equipment. Justify your purchase by showing us your recent images that were made possible with modern gear and cutting-edge features.
Your Best Winter Photographs
Welcome to the first Critique the Community Contest of 2025! Since it is deep winter in the Northern Hemisphere, we decided to make this month's theme "Winter." You can submit any image you've taken that captures cold, winter, or freezing elements.
Enter Your Best Photos from 2024
For the final photography contest of the year, we want to see your best images taken in 2024! There isn't going to be a specific genre for our December contest so anything goes as long as it's one of your favorite or most successful images of the year.
Enter Your Best Landscape Photos
For our next photography contest, we want to see the best Landscape photos you have ever taken!
Submit Your Best Moody Images
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.
Photos with "Unique Lighting" Win $2,500 in Profoto Light Modifiers
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.
Show Us Your Best Portrait, Win A Full Lighting Kit
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.
Each month this year, Fstoppers is running a genre specific Critique the Community contest with some amazing prizes. The theme for March is "Weddings," and we are giving away $3,000 in prizes to 3 lucky winners. Oh, and one of the most successful wedding photographers I know, Pye Jirsa, will be guest judging the images. Here are the details!
Is your art good? Is it mediocre? Is it expected? Are you surprising yourself? Have you seen growth in your craft, or are you simply doing the same thing? Are you proud of your body of work in 2023? As artists, sometimes, we get so busy in art-making that we don’t take the time to evaluate our art.
This contest was supposed to end tomorrow but due to both Elia Locardi and I going on Vacation, we have pushed the deadline back a few days.
Win $1000 In Our Biggest Photo Contest Yet!
Fstoppers' photography contests/critiques are back, and now the prizes are bigger than ever.
One of the hardest, cringiest things any photographer can do is go back and look at the images they created early in their career. In this video, Lee Morris and I revisit some of our best and worst images taken prior to launching Fstoppers.com. How bad are these photos? Let's find out!
According to Taylor Jackson, we're all Sony shooters, whether we like it or not. With the majority of today's cameras carrying Sony's imaging sensors, are we all becoming Sony shooters without even knowing it?
Painting is an art form. So are music, prose, and dance. No one argues otherwise. But photography, since its very inception, has had to justify itself as a legitimate art form.
The a7R V is the first AI-based camera from Sony. It has a dedicated AI processing chip, deep-learning algorithms, human pose detection, 8 stops of IBIS, and 61 megapixels of resolution. But is it really the best Alpha ever?
Criticism of photography is commonplace. Sometimes, it is invited and genuine, other times, not. How you decide to give or receive it can affect your self-esteem as a photographer. Moreover, it says much about your own creative abilities. Here's how to appreciate criticism and avoid being a criticaster.
Submit your best images of "Speed"
For this critique, we want to see any photo that represents "speed." A little blur might help you here.
Submit Your Best AI Art
Update: We just extended the submission date to August 17th to allow new users to upload their own images.
We Want To See Images From Your Personal Projects
In this Critique the Community, we want to see an image (or images) from a personal project you have completed or are still working on. The goal of a personal project is to explore a new theme in a unique and collective way.
Show Us Photos With Incredible Leading Lines
For this next contest/critique, we want to see your favorite images with interesting leading lines that pull the viewer's eyes through the frame.
Submit Your Most Creative Sports Portraits
For the next Critique the Community LIVE, we want to see your best and most creative sports portraits.
Submit Your Best Photos Of Animals
For the next live critique, we want to see your favorite animal photos.
Critique The Community Is Back! Upload Your Best Image of 2022
Six months ago we dismantled our studio but we are finally back in business again. Submit your favorite image that has been taken this year (2022) and Patrick and I will critique them live next week. Each photographer is allowed to submit up to three images.
There are few things that can make or break a photograph like composition. If you organize a brilliant composition of a scene, you could turn an average photo into something special. However, conversely, if your composition is poor, it can undo a lot of hard work.
Submit your best Product Photo
Alright everyone, it's time for a new Critique the Community! This time around we are exploring product photography. Recently our good friend and Fstoppers educator Brian Rodgers Jr posted a brand new image to the Fstoppers Community and it absolutely rocks!
Submit Your Best Environmental Portrait
For this critique/contest, we want to see your best photos of environmental portraits. Every image must include a person and ideally they would be photographed in an environment that represents who they are, where they work, what their hobbies are, etc.
Submit Your Most "Clever" Image
For this critique, we don't just want to see a great photo, we want to see a clever concept.
Images will still be rated on overall quality but only clever images, with unique ideas, will make it into the critique video.
Submit Your Best Photos with "Repetition"
For this critique/contest, we want to see your best photos that incorporate repetition.
This theme is pretty broad so almost any genre should work, we just want to see repeating details that make the photo stand out.
Show Us Your Best Night Photos
For this contest, we want to see your best nighttime photos.
More specifically, your image doesn't technically have to be taken at night, but it needs to appear like night.
Your Best Monochrome Portraits
Some people say that black and white images can look classic and timeless. In this critique, we want to see your best portrait photos that you converted into black and white.
Many presumed Luminar AI to be the big update for Luminar 4. But Skylum surprised everyone when Luminar AI turned out to be a completely different program. Or perhaps it isn’t that different at all?
So you've got a few photos of the same thing and you don't know which one to pick. Do you publish them all? No, you read this and then make a decision. You've seen it far too many times to count. A friend uploads four or five photos of the same thing with ever-so-slightly different angles, or perhaps one in black and white, because they couldn't decide which was their favorite.
Submit Your Best Photos Taken At Night
Photographs of the stars at night have been done to death. For this critique, we want to see all genres of photography taken at night.
Submit Your Best "Stormy" Images
Have you photographed a crazy event, portrait, or composite that utilizes an extreme weather event? If so, we want to see your best "stormy" images.
I'm sure most Facebook groups are started with the best of intentions so people with similar interests can share their passions. However, is the constructive criticism you get from Facebook groups really that helpful?
Show Us Your Best Photos That 'Tell a Story'
Some pictures are "worth a thousand words" but most photos pretty shallow. We want to see your images that truly do tell a story.
Show Us Your 'Luckiest' Photo
Sometimes every aspect of a photograph is meticulously planned, but most of the time, at least a portion of the final image was created by luck. For this next critique, we want to see the "luckiest" photo you've ever taken. What makes an image lucky?
Submit Your Best Photograph Taken With A "Hot/Constant" Light
Most photographers tend to light their subjects with either natural light or strobe but for this next critique/contest we want to see your favorite image taken with a constant light.
Creating a portfolio is more than simply selecting pretty images. In this video, I go over three photographers' work who are at different levels and explain how they should build their portfolio and what they need to do to move up to the next level.
We've started the new Youtube Channel "Fstoppers Live" and our first video is being filmed live today at 1pm eastern time. Please join us and don't forget to subscribe to our new channel.
To be a great travel photographer it requires more than just the ability to capture pretty photo — in fact, sometimes the photos don't have to be pretty at all. This is a long video, so grab a coffee/tea/beer, and prepare to absorb some quality knowledge from a professional travel and documentary photography.
Submit Your Best Images of "Technology"
In this episode of Critique the Community, we are looking for your best photographs that represent "technology". These images can be posted to any type of photography portfolio and feature any genre of photography.
Submit Your Best Group Photos
In this episode of Critique the Community, we are looking for your best photographs featuring groups of people. The group needs to be more than 2 people and can be of any genre of photography.