Critique the Community

Senior Portraits

Submit Your Best Senior Portraits For Critique
  • Submission Deadline: Mon, 02 Mar 20 06:00:00 +0000

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  • Voting is closed.

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For this critique, we want to see your best "senior portrait," (high school senior, not senior citizen).  In our latest competition (which will be released soon), both Pye and Patrick said my submission looked like a senior portrait, and they meant that as an insult. Show us what high-end senior portrait photography can be. 

Each person is allowed up to 3 entries. The highest-rated image and one random image with both win a free tutorial from the Fstoppers Store

  • Submission Deadline: Mon, 02 Mar 20 06:00:00 +0000

    This contest has ended.

  • Voting is closed.

  • 431 people have cast a total of 31,961 votes on 362 submissions from 179 contestants.
  • Congratulations to the winners!

    View Results

63 Comments
Previous comments

These sessions are called senior casuals. Most that I do actually wish to not include a “school vibe” because most of the time these are sessions that are done on top of the traditional school senior portraits. Hate that I may be getting a 1 rating due to someone else’s interpretation as to what a senior photo is supposed to be.

I think a little of this is coming from the kids themselves. I know with my daughter she wanted a few shots in her cheerleader uniform and pretty much nothing else even remotely connected to the school. Again, I don't shoot a ton of senior portraits, but the trend seems to be more fashion and glamour oriented, particularly with the girls. I think the kids see this as their first portrait of themselves as the adult they want to be. Maybe I'm just reading too much into this. Oh, and I agree with you. I would like to see the portraits reflect more of the school experience. But again, I think this is more of a client choice than a photographer choice.

I agree they don’t have to show something 100% tied to the school but they also should be associated to the time in their lives (activities in school, hobbies, etc) enough to know it’s a senior portrait. There’s typically a subtle hint of innocence in a senior portrait. You shouldn’t question the subjects age or involve provocative poses.

Some submissions in here are clearly portraits with subject/model that is just of that age. Some are flat out off topic.

Hi guys, I submitted a photo and then submitted a cropped version of the same. Should I delete the original one or is it unethical? I am new to the contests and have no idea what I am doing.

If people voted the original one don't take it down. Maybe that image will be picked to be featured on youtube instead of the cropped one. It may not be the right decision but we all make mistakes. Next time post the perfect version of your image.

Ok. Thank you very much

Trolls are truley sliming around these days...

I'm just going to say this here. Please don't photograph on active train tracks!
Can we get this out there. Its more dangerous than people realize.

Hundreds of people die from getting hit by trains every year. You cant here them coming like you think you would.

https://petapixel.com/2017/04/04/today-show-demonstrates-train-track-pho...

Photographers always get worked up about shoots on train tracks, but yet there are tons of photos in the middle of busy streets and no one bats an eye.

The report I shared literally concludes by saying that " you wouldn't photograph in the middle of a freeway, therefore you shouldn't photograph on railroad tracks."

You are correct, you should never be photographing somewhere that I could put you or your subjects in danger. But acting like individuals who are sharing helpful safety information are somehow hypocritical because they don't also include every other potentially dangerous scenario is insulting.

You feel strongly that people shouldn't photograph in the road? Fine, share that information. But don't give me crap for bringing up irrelevant safety issue that is prevalent in multiple of the photos inside of this competition. There's literally a horse standing on train tracks for God's sake.

The only person I remember standing in a road was doing so at a crosswalk. And yes, I still questioned whether that was a good idea or not.

Just wanted to say that are some idiots and trolls that rated one star ratings in my portfolio just to make my overall 4 star into a 3,1 star. Is there any way to see who is behind this. In our portfolio we try to show our work which we put a lot of effort in. Maybe the moderator can do something about this to keep this community a good place to be. Just saying.

I think senior photography has nothing to do with photography period. It's merely an event documenting a person at a certain time, like a mug shot after getting arrested.......It's the equivalent of playing in a cover band, in the photography world;)

Cover bands play to pay homage to a band’s existing and well known discography.
Photographers “cover” events to respect the passing of time.

Your analogy in fact proves how it is a needed genre.

Contest Submissions

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