Critique the Community

Costumes

Submit Your Best Photos of Subjects Wearing Costumes
  • Submission Deadline: Mon, 02 Nov 20 18:00:00 +0000

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  • Voting is closed.

  • Congratulations to the winners!

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Whether it's cosplay, high fashion, or a Halloween party, we want to see your best photos of subjects in costumes.

Obviously, any type of clothing could be considered a "costume" but we want to see elaborate costumes that took time to create and photograph. Of course, we will be giving extra points for costumes that match their surroundings as well. 

Each photographer is allowed to submit up to three different images. Please write a bit about your photo in the description. Images without descriptions will be disqualified. 

Two random photographers will be chosen to win a free tutorial from the Fstoppers Store

Lead image by: Jan Gonzales

  • Submission Deadline: Mon, 02 Nov 20 18:00:00 +0000

    This contest has ended.

  • Voting is closed.

  • 173 people have cast a total of 5,227 votes on 134 submissions from 71 contestants.
  • Congratulations to the winners!

    View Results

17 Comments

This is a great subject and hopefully, have some amazing creativity submitted. Looking forward to this one!

This contest definitely has the most high quality photos. Tons of really good ones!

Crazy good submissions 😱

As far as I am concerned, Jan Gonzales has already won with the headline photo on this page!

Man, some great entries for sure, but it makes me sad that this was such a missed opportunity. Such a great theme, but flooded with a bunch of "let me put on my ren faire costume and go into the park and take a picture with on camera flash." People put all this time and effort into creating elaborate costumes and then take snapshots of something that took weeks to do. And now Patrick is going to gloat about how he's right that cosplay is the worst. Some really good ones here, but truly the biggest collection of one star images I've ever seen in a contest.I think it's just a lot of focus on "look how authentic and elaborate my costume is" and rules for portraiture and camera settings and lighting and composition and editing and pre-production were just ignored.

That was the whole reason I thought I could make a living doing cosplay pics. All I saw was parking lot pics at conventions so I figured it would be easy to stand out with my graphic design background.

The biggest problem you face as a photographer who specializes in cosplay portraits is you can loose your voice. A lot of cosplay images I see try to duplicate movie posters and poses and colors and lights and effects. The Wonder Woman and Batman photos submitted are good examples because I didn't see a fresh image of those characters, and I didn't care to know who the photographer was. I wanted to know how much money they spent on it. Photographers got pushed back into the shadows.

Like Batman, I don't have a problem being in the shadows. My job is to bring the cosplay to life, celebrate the character and show off the hard work of the cosplayer and my business is all word of mouth so it works.

Bottom line: Never duplicate, make something new.

Right, tell that to the thousands of photographers that shoot the same Grand Canyon or Eiffel Tower image. Style is more important and in cosplay, people can tell my images from others.

and you managed to make a living out of cosplay photography?

Still do. And since my business doesn't revolve around convention shooting, I'm still busy while others are stuck waiting for Covid to end.

Such an odd comment coming from the undisputed king of 1-star pornographic images.

David, I really liked your photos

Costume is the key word.
Kids in baseball uniforms or pajamas are not in costumes.
People in traditional clothing are not in costumes.

Now, if you have a photo of a person in an elaborate RenFair costume and she/he is in Mcdonald's, that is a costume.
If you have the same person in the same costume but the scene is this beautiful antique castle and all the digital effect bells and whistles are added, it is no longer costume, it is a wardrobe. The reason is because the set, the effects, and the clothes are put together to be more of a piece of art.

So I understand and agree that the elaborate costumes in a public park look uninspired or a bit cheap, but the costumes remain costumes because of the cheapness of the location and lack of bells and whistles.

So there is always a fine line, but photographers need to keep taking photos to know when they are close bro the edge.

Contest Submissions

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