Critique the Community
Soft Light
Submit Your Best "Soft Light" Images!
Congratulations to the winners!
A few weeks ago we wrapped up our Critique the Community contest for August, and you, the community, had some unbelievable submissions. This episode is long but hopefully you enjoy the images and our rants as well.
Below are the top 3 images from this critique. Each of the top 3 images have won a free photography tutorial from the Fstoppers Store. Please private message Lee Morris to claim your prize.
Congrats to each of the winners and we look forward to seeing your best images in our September Contest featuring Clever or Outside the Box images!
Rules & Prizes
Today is a new month which means Fstoppers has a new Critique the Community contest! For the month of August, we want to see your best images featuring soft lighting. Anyone can enter up to 3 images with details below!
This month we want to focus on one of the most important aspects of photography, lighting! For the August 2025 edition of Critique the Community we are asking to see your best images featuring soft lighting. Soft lighting is often described as having gentle, diffused shadows with gradual transitions between light and dark areas. Soft lighting is often less vibrant and shows less contrast when compared to direct, hard lighting. Your soft light images can be completely naturally lit or perfectly crafted in the studio using flash, and any genre of photography is acceptable including landscapes, portraiture, weddings, still life, and conceptual photography. Each community member can submit up to 3 images for this contest.
Rules
- All images must be submitted from now until August 30th at 11:30 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. 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 primarily feature soft lighting in some way. There can be other forms of lighting included but the overall theme and mood of the image must be soft.
The top 3 images win!
This month we are rewarding the top 3 winners with a full photography tutorial from the Fstoppers Store (Prize value $300)
Good luck to everyone who enters and we look forward to seeing the best soft light photos from the Fstoppers Community!
BONUS DEAL!
For the month of August we are giving our readers the chance to purchase our fashion tutorial, The Fundamentals of Fashion Photography with Shavonne Wong, for only $49! This tutorial is normally priced at $179 and for this month only you can get it for the cheapest price it has ever been sold.
Shavonne Wong is an incredible photographer based out of Singapore, and this tutorial explores some of her best tips and techniques for making jaw dropping fashion inspired images. In this course, Shavonne teaches you some of the most misunderstood aspects of fashion photography such as how to assemble and work with a team, how to cast the right model, how to correctly style a high-end looking shoot, and what poses look most flattering and fashion forward. If you are more interested in lighting techniques, don't worry, as Shavonne explores some of her favorite lighting setups as well as some of the pitfalls many photographers experience when designing clean, but interesting, fashion lighting.
If you have an interest in fashion photography or simply want to learn from a successful photographer based in another world market, The Fundamentals of Fashion Photography is a great asset for photographers of any skill level.
Featured Image by the talented Irina Jomir
Sat, 08/30/2025 - 23:45
This contest has ended.
255 people have cast a total of 17,074 votes on 483 entries from 234 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.
74 Comments
Mentioning the rating doesn't mean it plays a role in getting picked. I mean the highest rated images do tend to be the best images, so if they're picking their favorite images, it would be reasonable to assume that if a majority of the community likes certain images, they're probably going to like the same images.
Now what we don't know is, do they keep track of past winners or not? If someone won last month, could they submit another killer image but it won't get selected because they have already won? Or if someone won a physical prize, are they open to win a tutorial only, but no other physical prizes for a while? That could also play a factor in image selection.
Watching the videos, I don't think they keep track very well. They will say something like, I think we've seen this before, or they will say I remember this artist before, but I don't think there is any purpose to it, other than by accident. Plus the same shots have ended up in the selection in multiple contests.
Mauro Stucchi. There probably is validity in that statement.
Many new people that come here will ask the same question, including myself when I first came here. This isn't a professional competition where there are usually a group of judges with specialized hands on experience in many different categories, instead of just one or two. Pro contests also don't give the submitters a voting voice in the process. In my short time here, I see images come up and instantly get 3.5 to 4.5 stars from 6 to 8 voters. then they gradually go down. I bet those are from group members or others that know one another from being here a long time. That's the way it goes. If you want to see how your images place in a professional competition, I suggest IPA and other international professional competitions. Remember though, that any one of 100 images are good enough to win those. It's a crap shoot in a different way.
In a way, aren't you saying that this is actually a tougher competition? I suspected as such, because the images, are basically being tossed out amongst the wolves, and only the truly best get fished out. If you can score in the Fstoppers community, you can probably do well, many other places. I've been on many sites, but it is here that has truly improved my abilities behind the camera.
No, what i'm saying is in a professional competition everyone is anonymous, except the judges. So you don't have others giving you 5s because their your buddy or 1s because they don't like you, the critiques you give, or the subject matter. Totally different types of contests. You do know that their are photography sites that you can ask for critiques?
If this works for you that's all that matters.
I wish I had Fstopper friends who gave me 5s, not because of any merit. J/K. You have such so-called friends? Of course they would not be doing you any favors. And we are all tired of accusations that there are somehow masses of fstoppers in these contests that are 1-ing everyone but their own photos, their is no evidence of such a thing happening. I'm not sure I received a '1' from anyone on my bee photo, at least when it was first put on the site. Obviously many have put a '2' on my photo and that is why the photo fell under '3' points, but I'm not sure how many 1s it has even received at all. Maybe. I mention this, not because I feel it should be voted, higher, but because I'm tired of the accusations against the voting system.
Interestingly, off the contest system. Since I've been on fstoppers for a while. There are certain users, that I think are way over-rated... I will not mention names. I believe when they put forth a photo on the system, all of a sudden they will get 8 (4 and 5-star votes)... and I look at the photo and wonder... Really?? I'm not seeing it. But I guess they are seeing something I'm not. I'm mean like the photos are all over-processed. But there is something about the name-recognition of certain people on the site. So I guess what your saying happens (that is about getting friends that give you 5-stars), but that probably more so happens in your profile, not in a contest. Read again what I was saying about how in your profile you may get the 'at-a-boy' vote, but not so in a contest. There are little to no 'at-a-boy' votes here.
Robert, don't take any of this personal. You love it and that's all that matters. Everyone here is just telling their own opinions. I get mine from years of the way social media works, and spills into every part of the internet. If you don't think that spills over to fstoppers, you're not understanding my opinions, and that is fine. Have you ever put any of your work into an international photography contest, not a local town contest?
I appreciate all of your responses. In the end, I believe we only uploaded a few photos in order to have some fun, exchange ideas, and meet kind people. If we don't win the contest, that's okay, right?
The good news is that I can view some really lovely images and possibly get insight and motivation for my future project.
I upload with no expectation to win anything, because there's some incredible talent. However, I surprisingly won a 2nd place prize last year and walked away with a cool smoke machine, so you never know.
It's been fun for a short while. Until we meet again.
Adios!
I don't get why he (new name change to francisoconnell, before departure) would get bent out of shape over something said here and leave the site, or maybe it wasn't here at all, or his ratings. However if you remember he was featured in a contest (a couple contests ago)... One of his wild Midjourney images. Which I encouraged him to enter into the contest, and he credited me, for pushing him to put into that contest.
Idea for next contest...Silhouettes. Idk if I have seen that one before on here but that could get really creative with either artificial or natural light.
I looked, silhouettes has never been used. I will say that personally I have very few photos that would fit that category and I submitted them previously. I try not to submit the same photos for multiple contests, but it would be interesting to see people's responses.
Yes, that would be interesting :) And no, everyone might not have pictures that fits the genre, but that applies to some previous contest too. Like "Your best portrait", as someone who do mostly lanscape/nature, I didn't have much to add in that category :P
Another idea. Double exposures!
On associe souvent lumière douce et photo peu contrastée. Pourtant, c'est loin d'être obligatoire car ce sont deux choses bien différentes. La lumière douce permet des transitions diffuses entre les zones de lumière et les zones d'ombre. Mais les hautes lumières et noirs peuvent être poussés, ce qui donne du contraste et un beau modelé aux portraits par exemple.
I am very honored that one of my photos was selected as Photo of the Day on August 20. Thank you so much!!!
so thrilled to make it into the critique " let alone the 5 stars and the win, still kicking myself! so many amazing photographers in the Fstoppers community, a privilege to be amongst you all
lol... It's a little late in the month. Lee and Patrick must be taking their time. Or maybe you know something the rest of us don't (maybe congrats are in order??). But these comments here will be wiped out when the 'critique' is actually released, and the winners are chosen and the images from the list are chosen, and then they give you the ability to sort the list by rating and other tools.