Join Fstoppers' Portrait Photography Competition
Yesterday I filmed this critique with the master of portraits, Peter Hurley. We went through my favorite 10 images from the contest and Peter chose the winners.
Stephane Rouxel won 3rd place, a free tutorial from the Fstoppers Store.
Andrés Sandoval Vidal won 2nd place and iVanky's 20-in-1 Thunderbolt Dock
Paul Papanek won first place, and Tamron's 70-180mm 2.8 lens
Send Lee Morris a PM on Fstoppers to claim your prizes. (All prizes must be claimed within 30 days or they will be forfeited).
Join December's Wildlife critique now.
Save 97% on Peter Hurley's first-ever tutorial here. Buy multiple tutorials at the same time and save even more.
Fstoppers' photography contests/critiques are back, and now the prizes are bigger than ever.
For our November contest, the theme is portrait photography and we are particularly interested in faces and expressions.
3rd place wins any tutorial from the Fstoppers Store.
2nd place wins the iVanky 20-in-1 thunderbolt dock for MacBook pro computers. You can see my full review of this dock here.
1st place wins the Tamron 70-180mm f/2.8 lens with a Sony, Nikon, or Canon mount.
1. Each contestant may submit up to three images
2. Images this month must be related to portrait photography
3. Each image submitted must include a description of the photograph. We want to know how it was taken, the gear used, and any post-processing you did to it. Images without a description will be disqualified.
4. Each photographer is only allowed to win one grand prize/year and one tutorial/year but they may still submit images to, and be featured in all 12 contests.
5. Everyone is encouraged to rate and comment on everyone's submitted photos but the highest-rated image will not necessarily win the grand prize.
The deadline for this contest is November 29th. Around December 1st we will review our favorite 10 images and announce the winner of the grand prize on the Fstoppers Youtube Channel.
Featured Image by Peter Hurley
Wed, 11/29/2023 - 12:00
This contest has ended.
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.
106 Comments
I think the scores need to be hidden (from everyone, including whoever picks the 'top 20') until after the contest is over.
By mostly viewing the top 100 scoring photos and deciding you've seen enough to pick 20 that gives people incentive to downvote other submissions.
If the scores were hidden until the contest was over then maybe the votes would be more realistic, with less attempts to 'game' the system.
I also think it's more interesting if a third party picks the top 20. Lee and Patrick give some interesting commentary, but since Lee picked them that skews his scores.
Congrats to the winners! Just curious how at least half of the selected shots were lacking in expression and we got to see ONLY 10 out of 1500 shots.
It didn't skew my picks and I looked well beyond the top 100. I just didn't find anything out of the top 100 that blew me away in the last contest.
Skewed your scores, since you picked ones you liked. /shrug
I still think *all* photos should be viewed, and in a random order. If that's too many to judge then maybe submissions should be limited to fewer than 3 per person.
I agree with the value of hiding the scores.
So far the submissions are really impressive. Almost 0 snapshots.
Peter Hurley's critique of each image is informative and well worth the time watching the hour-long video. I wish he had been given the top hundred public rated images from which to choose ten for discussion. As it was, the ten photos selected felt like they all had a lot more in common than they had differences. Lots of freckles and dead expressions. Half were black and white, cropped pretty tight to the face with a solid background. No environmental portraits. No whole body portraits. No props or lively colorful costumes. I understand so much is subjective... Mr. Hurley said as much about his own work, but really, the photo contest entry with the overall top public score didn't get a place at the top-ten table? C'mon man! I would have appreciated, and probably learned more, from greater diversity in the ten images chosen for critique.
One of more interesting elements of the video was their discussion regarding expression. Mr. Hurley made a point of describing how that component of the portrait evolved from his first days working in the business, and how expression, or lack of, was steeped in headshot photo history as well as fashion photography. A critique that he made a few times was what he described as "non-existent facial activity." A "dead" expression. Although a flat expression is still arguably an expression, more often than not he wanted more "juice" or greater impact from the expression. Which raises the question...
Expression establishes a point at which the client likes the image or not. A slight twitch in facial muscles here or there can change everything. I would like to have asked whether in the real world if it's more important to capture a lively exaggerated expression, or a natural expression which captures the essence of the person? Even if a person is not naturally very expressive. After all, expression identifies how we judge seeing ourselves in a photograph, and if it's not sincere, it's probably not gonna fly.
The irony of it all is that they'd describe exactly how each image needed work, but then score it a 3 (solid) or 4 (excellent). Or I think even considered a couple images as 5 for world class. Sorry, but there was nothing world-class in any of the ten photos discussed in this video. Not that it matters, but I thought if you could articulate what you think should be improved with an image, that that would justify a score of 2 "needs work." The label "portfolio worthy" breaks down too because, as Mr. Hurley said, that depends on who you're marketing your portfolio toward. If you're starting out and only have one image, it might be the worst picture ever but it'll still be in your portfolio.
So if the judge(s) can't seem to follow their own criteria, maybe it would be best to eliminate the labels and just stick to a numerical score from 1-5 based on bad to best and leave it at that.... the same way I'm pretty sure most of the public votes.
But some peoples clearly didn't watch or do not watch & listen what Lee speaks about contest :D And just drop anything they have.
As usual :D Nothing new :D
To encourage people to honestly give their opinion, it might be a good idea to show how someone rates a photo on average, with the appropriate definitions for each number of stars.
hahaha So funny You did not mention to Peter what the community scores were on those images. I am a Peter Hurley fan and I knew he was going to have a nervous break down over nearly any image I had seen before the video was made. Sure he did not act too negatively but he certainly was not expecting what he saw. I did not see them all but there were only two or three in the 10 that I had not seen. In all that I saw the community had not scored a single one a solid 4. Several 3+ but no 4s. Oh well gotta work with what you got. Any way I will be buying the Head shot tutorial. I absolutely love that Peter is not all about Photoshop !
There are too many 1.x-star photos that can't possibly meet the criteria for a 1-star photo under your rating system. I think most people are just disregarding the guidelines and rating 1 to 5 stars based on how much they like it.
I follow your system, but it feels a unfair to lump in almost-solid 2-star photos with the ones that I find hideous but technically can't fall into the 1-star category because they use post-processing or lighting.
Maybe a tweak in the system could help give a fairer picture of what's what. Next time I'm inclined to just join the herd and assign stars based on how much I like the image.
Ok so out of 1500 + images there were only 67 that got community scores of 3 or more with zero 4s. That friends, is shocking. Is the low ratings reality here, actual reality? Is it just people low scoring while believing themselves better than the rest? Or perhaps is portrait photography dying due to the iPhone selfie craze? Before anyone checks , I have no photos in this contest. I actually rated several images as 4s. No doubt this month's contest , Wild Animals , will have many truly 4 rated or higher images for us to enjoy.
This is the first contest I've entered and I definitely feel the star system isn't 100% working as it is. I say that because I've seen quite a few photos scored between 2–3 stars that should be scored higher. How is it possible that almost none of the images I'm seeing are breaking above 3 stars in their average rating?
Is it because other people are intentionally giving low votes to try and better their own chances?
I think it's hard to score. I thought expression would be the main criterium and execution second. But I even caught myself giving photos a 4, that based on expression, I really shouldn't have.
To combat the "I posted to facebook asking my 500 followers to 5-star my shots", there needs to be a way to weight the votes. This could be a combination of the voter's metrics on the site such as account age, interaction rate, average rating of their photos, etc. This way, a brand new account for grandma (extremely biased, subjective) voting 5-stars on her grandson's shot barely moves the needle whereas Peter Hurley's (way more experienced, way more objective) 4-star vote moves the shot up to 3.9 from a 2.0. And, the voting should be a second phase after submission is closed so that the concentration of eyes aren't skewed by the linear upload submission date and, instead, randomized.
I have been thinking the same! I have seen quite a few images that not only meet the criteria for the contest specifically, but are eye catching for many different reasons. Then I vote (based on the criteria given for stars here) and see it's got a rating of 2.2 or whatever. All I can think of is what you said, people hoping to give their photo a better chance?
Regardless it's not surprising. I was expecting something like this from a portrait contest. I've seen contests like this elsewhere and they usually end up the same way.
These contests need distinct submission and ranking phases. The ranking phase needs to be randomized. The overall score needs to be weighted based on the voter's metrics such as • age of account • awards for photos of voter • previous contests rankings • etc. Outlier votes need to be disregarded (beyond a few standard deviations from mean). Contestants going in and 1-staring all shots other than their own would be disregarded. People with brand new accounts 5-starring their grandson's/friend's/spouce's shots would not move the needle. Hurley voting on your shot would significantly move the needle.
I have no clue but even my photos are below the 2-star mark and other photos that are really good are also in the same position and I'm like people are just being ruthless in this contest lol.
I would think that especially portrait contest are so harsh because everybody knows how a world class portrait from magazines should look like and maybe they just compare yours to that. That's how it is, you need to have everything matching, lightning, eye catching expression, meaningful context/relationship with the subject and the background, the subject needs to stand out, technical quality must be there, also the work you've put into setting up the stage needs to match portfolio status, the background must be clean and have no distractions, and then the post processing needs to be flawless. Yes, and then there is the human factor, someone may not like the type of subject or the context where your image was taken or the story you tell and they will "punish" you for that. If even one of those things are slightly off, it probably ruins everything and you get a "2" - Needs Work. I think you just need to figure out what it is that you would need to improve if you feel 2 is not enough. Asking feedback is one thing, because, yes, actually very few people will truly give you honest, thus valuable critique if you don't specifically ask for it. I also usually refrain from giving that honest critique without a specific ask, I prefer to give the aforementioned kind of "indirect" critique instead, other ways people could take it too personally.
I get what you're saying and agree with it in theory but its hard to find any photos rated over 3 in this entire contest. Images I would consider between 4 and 5 are just barely cracking over 3. I know these contests are historically rated harshly cause people want to win but this one seems over the top.
I think It's a slippery slope to start to think that everybody is just manipulating each other ant that because of that, they don't rate you where you think you would deserve to be, I truly believe and hope that isn't the case at least for most of us. I'm not participating in this contest now and I still must say that still I had hard time finding too many shots that I would rate at 3 or more because of one or more of the reasons I just laid out in my previous reply, yes, there are also many clean and well executed images there but unfortunately I think so many of them still have an averagely or almost non composited/snapshotted subject with an average pointless dull or normal everyday look at their face which is so non-speaking just like any other average shot out there (around 70 to 90 % or so of the "better images" had that exact problem), it just can't be a portfolio level shot for people that are able to produce those day in day out, or then there just was something like a "spooky hand" or something sticking out of the background that could easily have been removed in post with little effort, which just made it somehow unattractive or off putting and distractive. I think the reality is that we all are able to rate people because we know how they should look like and we have seen so so many of good world class portfolio level pictures of people already. And then, to actually reach a 4 or 5, you would perhaps need to get all that perfectly matching and then additionally also tell a hart breaking or a truly joyful story. There was one image that I specifically remember that had a small poor looking small girl standing somewhere in a back yard of a slum, with a dirty shirt, but she was smiling so brightly and the sun was warmly shining behind her, the composition was well put together, for some it may perhaps have looked like a lucky snapshot, but I gave it a 4 because I felt that it told a story and it really made me smile, that's something I look for to give it more than a 3, I dropped one point out only because I felt it wasn't perfectly post processed or staged like a world class image.
Human nature is a funny thing. I didn't pay much attention to how images were rated until one of mine that is in my gallery with fairly high rating came in with a very low rating in the contest. So I started looking more closely at images that I thought rated at least a 4 and found that in contest trim, there were none.
So I did a little more digging and went to the galleries of some of the entrants that I thought should have been rated higher. Sure enough, just like mine, the ratings on their gallery were nearly always higher.
So now I take ratings in contests as poor sportsmanship from some of the members. Like I said, human nature is a funny thing.
And, looking through some of the portrait entries, we have some pretty good portrait shooters here!! So if your shot doesn't seem fairly judged, DO NOT get upset. It's sour grapes from some of the other members.
I agree on your view that there are some images that deserve a bit higher ratings, yes.
But I just think that we need to realize that when doing the normal user portfolio reviews here on F-Stoppers, it's ok to be generous, encouraging, kind and supportive towards all the fellow photographers, give nice reviews with positive vibe and then just refer to some things that could be "improved" or "changed", yes.
But, now, we are doing a contest review here, where you would need to be analytic and pay attention, compare and rate based on true achievements and skills. So yes, naturally you would (and should) give and get less points I think. Also, if everybody would manipulate each others rating, then the effect would actually cancel itself out and we would anyways end up with a situation where good pictures get best ratings, altough a bit lower, but still better.
Does it also mean that a 3-star photo with 100 votes is worse than a 5-star with 10 votes?
I just scrolled down to the images rated around 2.5 to see what my take was. Anything 2.5 - 2.9 could be rounded up to a 3 and IMO would meet the criteria of being strong enough to stay in your portfolio. Any images below an average 2.5 would be suspect but that's not to say the community didn't give that image an unfair shake because generally the community rating is fairly critical.
That being said, I personally did find very few images below 2.5 that I too would rate a 3 and say were strong enough to be in your portfolio.
As mentioned many times on here, most images are going to be 2s and 3s and some embarrassingly bad images could be 1s but very very few images are 4s and 5s. It's not graded on some scale where 5% need to be 5s or anything like that. I bet Peter Hurley has only taken a handful of 5s in his entire career. I don't think I've ever taken a 5 myself personally. So don't feel bad getting a 2.5 - 3.5 rating because by our scale those are still really good images.
For me it's easy to rate 1-3 stars as I find the criteria to be objective, it's 4-5 stars that I find difficult to score.
Well , the Idea of what a 5 might be certainly is subjective to be sure. I watched a video about IQ in which it said that as the overall population has gotten smarter the median line or the 100 level IQ has risen. Meaning that people who score a 100 IQ today would have actually been a !!0 or 115 many years ago. I believe the quality of photography has generally done the same. In other words an image that today might be 3 would have been a 4 several years ago. By the way I am super pumped the Contests are back. I thoroughly enjoy watching the results videos. I also really like your in house competitions too. Peace
Please join the guys for critique next time. If possible, have everyone judging go through as many submissions as they can... I'm sure you can tell the dissatisfaction from all the entrants.
Thanks again though for you guys!
I choose to only rate the 5* photos I see and the 1* images. Twos and threes are equivalent to a non-answer, not helpful to changing ratings, and a waste of a vote. After I scroll all of the 1's and 5's (faster than rating all of them), then I might move to 4's.
Congrats to the winners.
Learned a lot from Peter once again. Even went to watch the first video y'all made with him after y'all were reminiscing!
I just wish Peter had the time to go through the submissions and pick out his own favorites, and you guys could compare, and then choose winners.
I also believe leaving Patrick out of the selection process with his own favorite 10 pictures was a mistake. I'm a big fan of you guys.
Thanks for all you guys do.
some great work posted here. It's good to see so much talent!
Why I couldn't find my submission in all categories?
Congratulations to the winners. I don't mean this disrespectfully but how were these 10 images selected. They are great shots but in terms of the criteria portrait 'expressions' I was highly disappointed with the selection.
There were so many stunning shots with genuine expressions that didn't even get a mention. Hat's off to those who did actually submit pictures with such wonderful expressions.
I have the same problem. My pictures are no longer visible either. I only see them if I click the “Yours” button.
Same here..
They should be there. I can see mine.
1. Click on your profile pic at the upper right.
2. Click My Account
3. Scroll towards the bottom, "My Contest Entries".
4. If you want to see the category, click on the photo. Then the 3 dots at the upper right, then, View.
yeah it is there, I just couldn't find my photo in the 'ALL' category
The instructions I gave you would show "ALL" by default. So, if you are seeing it, you are seeing it under All category.
Unless you've deleted it, it should be there.
What image and in what category are you referring to?
now i can see in the 'ALL' category. https://fstoppers.com/entry/647553 This is the one
I'm looking forward to seeing what everyone enters!
i wasnt impressed with the results/picks of the final images. I think you need more than just Lee pick the images as clearly it was a 'freckled' contest. Kind of 'one-sided'...
Wow! This was… humbling…! 😁😁😁 Nothing like a contest to slap you back to reality! 😁😁😁
I'm confused on why the top ten rated in the community didn't make it in the final top ten. I thought that's what the voting was for?!? Maybe that's why people aren't voting. Ultimately their vote doesn't matter. Two of mine placed higher in community voting then half that were selected for top 10. That's confusing.
--- "Maybe that's why people aren't voting."
No, tons of people voted. Look at the stats on the left side. This contest and the one before it is one of the larger votes casted than other recent contests.
--- "Ultimately their vote doesn't matter."
It still matters because it pushes the entries towards the top for a chance to be selected.
But, yeah, I think the 10 ten should be comprised of community (top 5) and FS staff favorites (top 5). Then have a guest judge that has the final say.
No, you don't want to reward people that have the most Facebook friends.
No, it doesn't work that way. A lot of members new to this site's contests that are dumbfounded of their ratings want to believe that conjecture. Even if that conspiracy theory were true, my suggestion would negate the Facebook friends and maintain value in spending time voting.
Wow! No wonder I had to go looking for this post, instead of being notified the judging was complete. All three winners are great photos.
Best of show was community rated at 3.2. Nice to know we all suck at judging, maybe headshots too!
David
I think we should be limited to only 1 entry.
Thank you, David!