Critique the Community
Color
Submit Your Most Colorful Images
Congratulations to the winners!
The results are in. Here is our full video critique for November's photography contests and the winners.
Third Place
The winner will receive a free tutorial from the Fstoppers Store.
Second Place
The winner will receive a free copy of ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate.
First Place
The winner will receive a free Tamron 25-200mm lens.
To claim your prizes, please send me a private message on Fstoppers within 30 days.
Rules & Prizes
Welcome to the next Critique the Community Photo Contest! The theme for this contest is "Color", and for the entire month of November, we want to see your best images showcasing vivid and vibrant hues and colors.
Rules
- All images must be submitted from now until November 30th at 10:00 PM Eastern Time.
- Every image submitted must include a short story on how you took the photo, what were the challenges, how you used natural or artificial lighting, what gear you used, and any other interesting insight on the image itself. Since this critique is focused on color, please include any post processing tricks you used to achieve the color palate in your final image. Photos that do not include some backstory on how it was taken will not be picked to be featured in the Critique the Community episode.
- Each image must be, obviously, a color image.
Prizes
First Place: Tamron 25 -200 f/2.8 - 5.6 Di III VXD G2 Lens
One lucky winner will receive the newest all-in-one 8x zoom from Tamron. This lens features a fast f/2.8 aperture when shooting at 25mm and has a very useable f/5.6 aperture when zoomed all the way into 200mm. With a minimum focusing distance of just 6.3 inches and 31.5 inches between the wide and telephoto range, this lens can also provide exceptional close-up magnification. This 2nd Generation lens is essentially the successor to the wildly popular 28-200mm F/2.8-5.6 Di III RXD lens but now gives an even wider field of view for photographers wanting a light weight, yet versatile travel lens. Total value of this prize is $899
Second Place: ACDSEE Photo Studio Ultimate 2026
The second place winner of this critique will win a full version of ACDSee's flagship Photo Studio Ultimate 2026 photo editing suite. This powerful photo editing software is one of the most popular suites for photographers wanting to catalog, edit, retouch, and store their images all in one single application. New for 2026 is an completely new Ai based portrait retouching panel, AI noise reduction module, hair selection tool, and brand new non destructive Ai style and develop presets. Total value of this prize is $150
Third Place - This month 1 third place winner will receive a full photography tutorial from the Fstoppers Store Total Prize value: $300
Good luck to everyone who enters and we look forward to seeing your best photographs feature strong and dynamic color!
Featured image by the talented Dina Belenko
Sun, 11/30/2025 - 21:00
This contest has ended.
249 people have cast a total of 18,869 votes on 576 entries from 289 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.
36 Comments
I don't see too many where its overdone, at least not on my screen. Maybe I'll break out my macbook to doublecheck.
I don't see anything too egregious on my screen so far.
I agree, the submissions are usually pretty hit or miss with these contests but so far this one has a lot of great pics
What a humble honour to featured in the critique. Highly appreciated! 🙌 The sunrise photo at 48:35 is from Torres del Paine in Patagonia, Chile. And yes, it's real and without any AI.
I'm new here, just wondering, are there any rules against posting more than one picture?
You can post up to 3.
Ok, got it.
I found out the 3 photo limit when I tried to post a 4th. I was able to delete one and upload another. If this is a rule (3 only), maybe it should be in the Rules.
Hmmm, a little musing:
I thought it was interesting, at the end of the rules we find, "Each image must be, obviously, a color image. "
And I thought that was redundant, it is a "Color" Contest, but then I thought surely no one would have posted a Black and White image...
hmm, wait...are Black and White not colors?
Now I'm really confused!
(all in fun my friends)
Grats to the winners!!!
As a matter of fact, black is not a color as it is absorbs all light (black=absence of light, nothing is reflected back). White is made up of all the colors in the spectrum, so technically not a color. But let"s let science beside, let"s enjoy the photos and hope the video will be up soon.
This was my first submission. I've been hoping to join for LITERAL years now, but haven't hopped on the opportunity. LOVE the submissions so far!
Sweet! thank you for the critique — The colorful food shot on the cookie sheet was done for a local farm (not a restaurant) that wanted to showcase and sell their lamb chops :) Thank you & congratulations Patrick on the birth of your baby girl!
Ummm... what??!
The theme was COLOR. Most of the colors in the winning shot are muted. The main subject of the photo is the dancer; not the color. I get that it's TECHNICALLY a clean photo and well lit, but aesthetically it lacks any sort of captivating composition. I mean, realistically, how many people would actually WANT that image hanging on their wall?
The second place winner has an exceptional image that's worthy of National Geographic and a photo gallery. The color leaps out of the image and is beautifully contrasted with the blue path. The path then leads the viewer's eyes directly to the farmer, who's perfectly placed within the frame.
As I was looking at all the photos in this contest, I breezed right past the winning shot because there was nothing unique about it. It's a model... posing... in a studio. In my opinion, it's relatively bland. The second place shot, though... now THAT captured my attention and made me pause to take a deeper look at it. THAT to me is what a winning photo is all about.
Sadly, I'm finding that two things win the contests on this site; breasts and birds. If a photo has a beautiful woman in it, you guys rate it highly. Even the third place winner has a more impactful image than the dancer. I really hoped that the contests on this site would showcase the very best work out there, but that's proving to not be the case. The shot with the model in the flowers was gorgeous and far more appealing than the winning photo. It's discouraging to see what you guys pawn off as winning photography.
The number of colors! OMG THE COLORS! *JIZZES IN PANTS*
"opens my window and a breeze rolls in and I 'Jizz in my pants"
I’m grateful to have won 3rd place in the Color category, but I’m honestly disappointed with what’s happened afterward. The prize was supposed to be any photography tutorial from fstoppers store, and I still haven’t received it.
I’ve messaged both Patrick Hall and Lee Morris multiple times with no response, and now it seems I can’t even message them anymore.
I respect Fstoppers and the community, but this doesn’t feel fair or transparent. I just want the prize that was promised and a proper response.
Some photos are awesome but I downvoted them a bit due to not being colorful. The contest is color, right?
Theme is color, not colorful.
Color
1 a: a phenomenon of light (such as red, brown, pink, or gray) or visual perception that enables one to differentiate otherwise identical objects.
Colorful
1: having striking colors
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/color
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/colorful
Keywords/thoughts I think from the "Rules" and last line for this months contest:
"Colors"
"best images showcasing vivid and vibrant hues and colors"
"best photographs feature strong and dynamic color"
I think "Colorful" fits, doesn't its basic etymology mean "full of color"?
My interpretation is "multi-colored, bright, exciting imagery" - I think there are a lot of these types of images being submitted.
But a lot of times these contest leave it open to each photographers perception of what is the "Contest" and it's wide open for submissions. This time I think it is pretty clear what they are hoping to see. :D
What about Black & White conversion saved as a RGB?
Hey Paul
Was this a comment to my musing above or to the one it's posted too?
But either way, I think the question is above my pay grade (read knowledge or expertise)....but I'm pretty sure it would be passed over for this particular contest. Even though the channels are there it's still "grayscale" until you add color back in.
But you maybe just messing with me, because I know it's not above your pay grade !
Yes and no ... maybe? I did not see you Nov. 4 comment till after I wrote this, which either shows "great minds think a like" or you and I are twin brothers of different mothers. ;) When I convert to Black & White I never truly enter a "grayscale" mode, in that throughout the process I remain in RGB mode even at saving. A b&w saved as RGB is suppose to yield better prints.
The instructions clearly state "Submit Your Most Colorful Images."
What's going on with these contests? Neither of the September or October results have been posted in the Fstoppers site. I realize the September video with results was posted to YouTube but the winner indicates difficulty collecting the prize. Why the long delay and why can't the videos and results be shown here in the contest itself?
The next contest will probably be about black and white photography.
That would be funny!
This contest must've been a doozy, since the video isn't out yet. :)
Look how long it took Septembers to be posted.
I don't remember them being this behind on things. Then again, end of November was a holiday, so that could be a reason for the delay.
I think they are going through all the pics, as we have some smart @$$€$ in here who post late and downvote other pics, so as to win.
They've already said multiple times that the rating has nothing to do with what they select. If the photo is rated high, they'll point it out.