Critique the Community

Concerts

Submit your best live music photo for a chance to win a free Fstoppers tutorial
  • Submission Deadline: Thu, 04 Jul 19 03:45:00 +0000

    This contest has ended.

  • Voting is closed.

  • Congratulations to the winners!

    View Results

When you attend a concert, at some point you probably pull out a camera to grab a shot or two, but so does everyone else. What sets apart a good concert photo from the rest? 

For our next episode of Critique the Community, we will provide feedback to 20 different images taken of live music performances to offer insight into good and bad concert photography. Of the submissions, two entrants will win a free Fstoppers original tutorial. The first winner will be chosen based on the highest average community rated image. The second winner will be chosen at random. You have until July 3, 2019 to submit up to two of your best images to participate. 

Once you've uploaded your images, scroll through the rest of the submissions and provide a few thoughts of your own to your fellow community members. You can rate other images efficiently by using your number and key pad or leave comments on images when you notice problems that could be improved. 

Thanks to Alex Cooke who provided the featured image.

  • Submission Deadline: Thu, 04 Jul 19 03:45:00 +0000

    This contest has ended.

  • Voting is closed.

  • 473 people have cast a total of 31,945 votes on 359 submissions from 220 contestants.
  • Congratulations to the winners!

    View Results

20 Comments

I 5 stars any shot of Björk.

I sure hope, that in this critique they will keep in mind that none of these photos are set up by the photographer, and therefore have to evaluate these quite differently than usual.

Welcome to the community critique.... where everything's made up and the points don't matter.

Shooting a world class musician from the pit = 1 star all day long....

haha well so far.... I've seen way too many images with 2.something averages... that easily should be a 3-4 considering the genre. As you've mention. These are all caught on the fly... and usually combatting some pretty unforgiving light. Y'all killing it out there!

I agree. Click on an image that has good emotion, color, composition, etc and it has an average of 1 point something or very low 2. I forgot why I stopped submitting to these critiques for a while but now I remember....

Well this is my first one haha, not really what I do on the norm, but I enjoy shooting shows. I will say... they should looking to changing the rating process... think if you submitted an image... you shouldn’t rate others? I think there are some sore people out there trying to keep their rating higher than the average haha

I disagree with "have to evaluate these quite differently than usual". A good photo is a good photo regardless of the venue or preparation needed to take it. A photo needs composition, story, and a unique perspective to standout. Catching a moment is the essence of photography and judging photos should reflect that.

I agree with you! So far the ones I’ve seen rated with a 1 have been just that- merely snapshots. I didn’t feel like the photographer planned out the composition just tried to catch the moment. But I guess it’s all subjective to personal preference I suppose.

While I agree all good images must have what you mentioned. However, IMO, you can’t really judge a studio image and a live image the same. One you have complete control down to the expression... the other has to be captured naturally. 🤷🏻‍♂️ While of course a great photographer finds these moments. I feel you can almost always go... “man I just wish they were...” it’s apples and oranges... while both fruit... can’t look at them quite the same way. IMO. But hey everyone has their view point. I respect yours.

Can I delete a submission? Didn't find where it said "Only 2 photos can be submitted" or something like that until after I did. I want to swap one of them out for a better one.

Not that I know of.... I wanted to do that myself and didn’t see away.

yes - open the entry, go to the three little dots on the upper right corner, select edit. Once the edit window opens, there will be a delete option

ha awesome!

Automotive photography critique any time soon? :)

Good suggestion. Also to consider:
Fluids
High Key
Abstract
Toy/Miniature
Motion

No people!

Many of these are better than we've seen in some other recent contests. I was traveling so had no time to add an entry so good luck to all the contestants in these days before finals.

Sooooo.... could we just post the next topic?

Ready for a new critique! How about no subject, just submit your favorite photos for your own particular genre .

A free for all.

Contest Submissions

Click on the thumbnails below to comment and vote on each image.

Click here to learn about the Fstoppers rating system and what each star value means.