Critique the Community
Beauty
Submit your best beauty photo for your chance to win a free Fstoppers tutorial
Congratulations to the winners!
Twenty images were selected to be critiqued and the winners have been chosen. Do you agree with the ratings?
Congratulations to Nico Socha for submitting the highest community rated image and to Chris Jollie for being the randomly selected entrant to win a free Fstopppers original tutorial. We will be in touch with both of you via your Fstoppers profile to claim your prize.
If you would like to be a part of the next Critique the Community, we are going to have Elia Locardi in the studio with us giving feedback to your best landscape images. Submit your entries HERE.
Rules & Prizes
Your next chance for an image critique is here. Submit your best beauty photos to receive feedback and a chance to win an Fstoppers tutorial of your choice.
Excellent beauty photography comes down to the perfection of detail in a model's face. We have always admired the work of Julia Kuzmenko McKim, whose work is featured above, as an example to be followed when it comes to beauty photography. While her portfolio is full of 4 and 5 star images, we want to see the full range of images from Fstoppers members this week. Between now and August 23rd, we invite you to upload two of your best beauty images for a chance to be critiqued by the Fstoppers team and to win one of two free Fstoppers original tutorials. The first winner will be based on the highest rated community image and the second will be chosen randomly from the entries.
After images are uploaded, we encourage all community members to scroll through and rate them fairly yourselves. The quickest way to do this is by using your keyboard's arrow and number keys. Feel free to leave feedback of your own in the images comment section but please keep your words helpful and encouraging. We're all growing in this creative process together.
Thu, 08/23/2018 - 23:45
This contest has ended.
446 people have cast a total of 29,011 votes on 360 entries from 226 participants
Contest Submissions
Click on the thumbnails below to comment and rate each image.
Click here to learn about the Fstoppers rating system and what each star value means.
64 Comments
Yes, I did. And?
Nothing just noting the incoherence of your thinking.
Perhaps I'm just an incoherent person.
(BTW, that wasn't really a long reply by any stretch.)
Part about stuffed animal hurts. And that’s not anteater...
300+ comments by someone and still just a stuffed animal posted... seems like I called the bullshit out when it stunk the most.
Watch out, he wrote a blog post about you.
The concern is sarcasm, the blog (unfortunately) is real.
I can’t wait for it to go viral on Build a Bear .com
Why you got to go be knocking Build-A-Bear? It's a wonderful place to spend time with family.
It is popular here. Community photo experts with 0 photos.
I'm not an expert nor have I ever pretended to be. :D
What blows my mind is how low some of these photos are scored. It's absolutely astonishing. I wonder if the people who score them so low can do any better.
Any chance of Julia being a guest judge?
Julia Trotti?
Go the community and look at some of highest rated images. Those should be the standard for what you aspire to be in any genre.
I think Wayne mean Julia Kuzmenko McKim,
Photography is subjective if you take away the technical aspect out of the picture. Nonetheless I stand by my comment that some of the photos in this list are scored way too low. I noticed this over the past several months that many users here are simply mean.
I think Wayne meant Julia Roberts.
I agree to some degree. The ratings on the FS Community are from other photographers who are def more harsh than the general public. I think that's a good thing though. It's easy to post a photo on Instagram and get 2,000 likes and feel great about yourself but it can also feel like your mom telling you your work is great simply because she is biased and wants to be encouraging.
My suggestion is always to use both the FS community and a more public platform like Instagram to get a wide overview of how your work is received. It's a lot like music, the general public will consume poorly written pop music that is cut and pasted and compressed to the point of no dynamics but if you shared that pop song with a real musician you admire, they'd probably not find much value in it. It's all subjective but you can still try to qualify the overall art in some capacity.
I'd like for FStoppers to institute a mandatory comment rule when judging a photo. Simply clicking on stars is utterly useless. The scoring system is like saying your photo sucks, but without an explanation. It isn't helping especially the ones who are still learning. In the real world when someone criticizes something we expect a reason not a simple I don't like it. People are lazy to begin with, but giving them a medium where they can freely practice this laziness is even worse.
Julia Stiles
Unfortunately I don't think we'll be able to get her to guest judge this round.
I agree, the whole contest is scored very low. For instance, my images get 4-5 stars on my profile but here only 3-3,4. Also some other photographers are higher scored on their profile. But as David Strauss mentioned everybody wants to win and score others lower than they would be scoring on their profiles.
There is no doubt this is true and I'm not sure how to really solve this. My suggestion is to always view both ratings. The reason we can't import the ratings from the community is that those who have 100s of votes that are 4 stars would always win even if a new image that was a 5 was submitted. It's def a tough situation to fix.
Maybe when you have posted a contest contribution, you can not vote for the competition. Only those who have nothing to win or lose can vote. Then maybe the voting would be impartial and more fair?
FStoppers should have a rewarding system based on how much you give feedback and rate pictures, so that more people get involved both in contests and overall.
You shouldn’t be allowed to vote 2 or 1 without some CC
I feel like people just vote 2’s so their 3 photo will do better.
Critique the community - toxic masculinity edition!
Completely agree. I just uploaded a picture and the first vote was a 1. I don´t claim my picture is a 5 or anything. It could perfectly be a 2 for some people and it is perfecly fine, but 1, a snapshot. Come on. People downvote on purpose. I believe that if Fstoppers removed the prize for the highest rated image among the community (and changed it for the highest rated image for them), people would start being honest about the ratings they give.
Watching two guys rate and comment on women’s bodies is gross enough but Patrick crossed a line...I know his argument is he’s just being honest and its what sells, but he’s wrong. Companies are using different body types to sell beauty product. There’s even been campaigns that use untouched up models or models without makeup. And guess what, the photographers that took those photos where able to make the photos look damn good! Companies are finding out that this fucked up regresssive stick figure idea of “beauty” isn’t what all customers what, and that representation can sell...
On the last picture it was particularly gross... that picture had some serious photographic issues but Patrick could stop talking about how hot the models where...
yeah there's someone that is voting 1 to everyone, if it keeps this trend the "winning" picture will be the one who manages to get at least 2 stars lol
Hate to burst your bubble but almost every #nofilter photo you see are actually photoshopped. It's a massively unethical situation but I personally know several retouchers who work for major brands that specialize in the "unretouched retouch" look.
Again, this has nothing to do with body shaming or being harsh for the sake of being harsh. Walk down any cosmetic isle or open any magazine and count the number of unattractive men and females used to promote products. I'd venture to say the only "normal" looking people you will see are celebrities.
You can argue points about companies like Lane Bryant but they are still marketing towards a very specific demographic.
Again, this isn't about being mean or body shaming but rather putting your absolute best foot forward in your own photography portfolio so that you can be successful as a photographer.
To be fair, I'm finding that the ratings they give more or less equal what the audience gives
Yeah Patrick, cause this is totally not a thing, i’m just making it up
https://www.ae.com/featured-aeriereal/aerie/s-cms/6890055
And my comments aren’t just about retouching, its how you attacked acutal bodies and praised other skinner bodies
It's still a relatively small subset. American Eagle's page looks nothing like Aerie's page and we shall see how long this trend lasts. I still stand behind the idea that you should make your own photography portfolio look as amazing and high end as you can and then you can always execute the goal of a specific brand once they hire you. If you were to use the images on the Aerie underwear sales page as your own portfolio, I'd be willing to bet you wouldn't get the same high paying gigs you would get if your portfolio looked like the Express underwear sales page.
And just a small caveat here, you are pulling from a more lifestyle oriented page than a true beauty page. If you are aiming to shoot for Mac, L'Oreal, Maybelline, or other high end beauty brands, I think you'd be silly to use models that aren't above or extremely above average in looks.
Most videos when there’s usually a “well this isn’t standard x but if your whole photofollio is this and your customer is y then it would work” type critique.
Take the photo that you made the psa on. There was some serious photographic issues with that photo. But that model would fit in perfectly with an aerie or dove campaign given that the photographer could bring the skills. Then take the last photo with the two models. Yep those models fit the “normal” standard of beauty but those eyes where a mess. They loopked completely blurry. Yet you’re all like “you got beautiful models” so its cool the guy jacket the eyes right?
Honestly part of the fun of these videos are when your off the mark (ie that’s clearly a picture of yellowstone that you guys think is some strange or exotic place, and eagles fight like that a lot, its not this rare thing)...but here it just comes off as sexist bs. Honestly if you start the intro to the contest (ie last video) with a only bring hot models statement and then double down on it how welcomed do you think photographers that take phototo that are 5s for a dove or aerie campaign would feel?
Yeah express would never cast a plus size model
https://www.express.com/exp/womens/express-one-eleven
The sales page: https://www.express.com/womens-clothing/express-one-eleven-lounge/cat28…
https://www.target.com/c/plus-size-clothing-women-s/-/N-5ouvj
https://www.glossier.com/category/body
https://people.com/style/m-a-c-cosmetics-features-plus-size-woman-in-gr…
Do i need to find more? It might not be your thing, but there is a market there for 4 or 5 star beauty images with non-traditional models. Why are you guys ok pointing this out in every other critique the community (ie if the this doesn’t seem on point but if this is your whole portfolio then it makes sense) but are drawing a line in the sand on this one?
The biggest problem is with the rating scale itself, nobody reads it and a “2” is actually a “good” photo it just needs work.
The scale needs to change to a 2 being a 3 because rarely do you see 4-5 star images. Even in the critiques you see them rate 2s and the photos are cast away like they’re trash. 2s are an opportunity to teach the community what’s wrong instead of just throwing it in the garbage. There was little to no real help or critique in the automotive contest and was painful to watch.
If people read the guidelines on voting or if they were changed to adapt to what people are actually rating photos, it wouldn’t be a bad system.
I think 5 increments is not enough to capture photography ranging from a blurry snapshot taken at Disney World by your mom with a disposable camera to Ansel Adams...
Frankly speaking, the 5-star rating in the current system is pretty useless. How many photos will actually be "World Class"?
So if you consider that most people will probably only effectively be using a 4-star rating system, if you're averaging anywhere between a 2 and 3, you're doing well for yourself.
I completely agree. To get a solid 3-3.5 it’s pretty damn hard. You don’t see many.
I'm having a similar experience. There should be an automatic adjustment for how harsh or how easy an individual votes in any one contest.
If a member's voting average is 1.5, a rare 3 is actually more like a five. If another member's average is 4.5 then a rare 3 is more like a 1.
Agreed. My guess is two things 1) People who submit photos give other photos a low rating to elevate their own. 2) Rookie photographers are jealous of professional photographers and give great photos a low rating to make them feel better. LOL
Very odd in this modern day world that you have the gift of mind reading and the motivation behind it. But it would make a good circus act.
When you write "You have the gift of mind reading" isn't that you doing the very thing you're accusing Vance of ?
It was satire friend and even if I was serious there was no accusation in my words. However when someone makes that type of editorial rant. when you spot it you got it. What I think the gentleman did was exposing Himself at being a cynic
He said it was a guess. Admittedly your attempt at satire went over my head.
Probably, but how would one enforce that?
I agree, and also have a body of work to back up that CC. Its easy to criticize, but much harder to create work from an idea or vision.