Welcome to another Critique the Community contest!
Each month, Fstoppers is challenging our community to submit their best photographs for our Critique the Community Youtube show, and three lucky winners will win a variety of photography related prizes.
With summer in full swing, we want to see your best "Travel" images. Your photos can be from any genre of photography including landscapes, portraits, architecture, or photo journalism, but it must portray a sense of travel and exploration OR have a good back story on how the image was taken while you were traveling.
Each image featured in the critique will be picked based on creativity, lighting, subject matter, overall production, final edit, story telling, and overall "wow" factor. The community rating does play a small part in our selection but it's not as big as you might think so don't get too wrapped up in what others have to say about your image.
Deadline
This month we are allowing each participant to submit up to 3 photos. All images must be posted to this page no later than August 30th, at 11:00pm Eastern time.
As always, every eligible entry must have at least 3 sentences explaining how the photo was taken, any valuable technical information including lighting, camera gear, lens choice, etc, and any background story that might help our viewers understand why your image is so interesting. We have pulled images from our final critique because the photographer did not give us enough information to make the critique informative.
The Prizes
Each month we are giving away a variety of different photography related prizes. Below are the prizes being offered for the 3 randomly chosen images featured in the next Critique the Community.
First Place - One first place winner will receive the new Tamron 28 - 75mm f/2.8 Di III VXD G2 zoom lens (Nikon or Sony). This lens is a great full frame lens that offers wide angle and medium telephoto focal lengths in a robust, but easy to carry zoom lens. The fast 2.8 aperture is great for achieving professional quality images in low light and super shallow depth of field when taking portraits, but can also produce tack sharp landscape images when stopped down to f/8.0. Valued up to $999.
Second Place - One second place winner will receive the Spyder X2 Elite Colorimeter by Datacolor. This monitor calibration device is critical for achieving standardized color on your desktop monitors as well as your mobile laptop workstations. This updated version's advanced display mapping & analysis will give your monitors better color, brightness, contrast, gamut, tone response and white point. You can also check screen brightness, color uniformity and display color accuracy. Valued at $269.
Third Place - One third place winner will receive a free tutorial from the Fstoppers Store. We have full length tutorials on a wide range of genres such as architectural photography, headshots, landscapes, product photography, and of course portrait photography. Valued at $299
Added Bonus!
And finally, to help celebrate summer and all your travel adventures, Fstoppers is having a massive sale on Elia Locardi's tutorial Photographing the World 2: Cityscapes, Intro to Astrophotography, and Advanced Post Processing. This tutorial is normally priced at $300 but for the entire month you can get it for just $59.
This 15+ hour long tutorial lets you travel along side Elia as he travels to over 5 countries capturing some of the most beautiful locations the world has to offer. Whether it is the incredible modern cityscapes of Hong Kong and Singapore or the ancient temples of Cambodia, Elia Locardi walks you through his process of capturing a wide range of man-made buildings and architecture. After exploring parts of Southeast Asia, Elia flies to his native country of Italy to capture Cinque Terre, one of the most beautiful and iconic coastal villages in the world. Finally, the entire team flies down to the southern island of New Zealand to capture the night sky and Milky Way Galaxy.
This tutorial consists of 19 individual lessons. Once you experience Elia capture each photograph on location, he then takes you back to the post production studio where he explains all his advanced tips and tricks used to make these images come to life. As with every tutorial in the Fstoppers library, you will receive all of the image files needed to master Elia's advanced techniques while following along on your own computer.
Regardless if you are a beginner with photography or you are a professional photographer who has already traveled to these breathtaking locations on your own, Elia's Photographing the World series is guaranteed to not only teach you new ways to improve your own photography, but it will also make you feel like you are right there exploring the world together.
Good luck to everyone entering and we look forward to critiquing your best "travel" images!
Featured Image by the extremely talented Herbert Franke
With the Olympics now over, and the paralympics around the corner, how about a sports action category next month?
Saturday afternoon musing...
Generally speaking, a travel photo has to be interpreted within context. The audience for the image will largely determine if the picture is perceived as travel. What's travel to one person is the home of another person. I think there were a few images entered in this contest from the US Southwest. Great pictures, as are many other pure landscape pictures. But I can go have lunch in Moab, Utah, and be back at home in a few hours. The same is true for people of a different culture. They may look different to us, but they are ordinary people in their own environment.
Interesting musing Edward.
Is a travel photo as much as a great distance traveled as perhaps the destination regardless of how far one has traveled to get there?
How fortunate that you can be in Moab with access to some amazing State and National Parks so quickly! I am also blessed with many wonderful sites and places within easy reach.
I am hoping that most will see the images in this contest as meaning "travel" just by their submission from the photographer and then judge the image on it's merit. (except for the ones that seem to be submitted to punk or mock Fstoppers...those get 0 stars!)
Agreed, travel as a theme should not be strictly based on how far the photographer has travelled, nor should it be limited by the subject matter either. Personally, I would think that the photo should evoke a feeling of wanderlust, even if it's a photo taken in one's own backyard.
I think many people are missing the point of this contest, as rules are not quite clear and specific either.
I understand travel photography as portraying people out of their usual environment and activities, regardless how far they have moved. Of course, the photo can be staged and taken in your backyard, but it should represent travel as a concept (e.g. people walking, riding bicycles, traveling by car, photographing a touristic attraction, interacting with local people, etc., etc., etc.). A photo of a bird, just because you took it far away from your home, is not a travel photo. And there are many entries like this.
Our themes are always left open to be interpreted loosely so that more people can enter. Travel in this case doesn't mean the images need to portray "traveling" or even be outdoors. My intention was to make it about any image you have created while traveling. If you were traveling to NYC for a wedding and wound up taking a cool product shot in your hotel, well that would be travel to me. The shot of a bird could be travel if you captured it out while traveling. The photo doesn't need to be translated to the audience as "travel" but it could be. It's a loose translation.
Thank you, Patrick, for this!
I understand the needs to interpret these contests loosely to appeal to the masses of your audience. It certainly makes it more fun for more people and reaches the wider audience.
I do conjure up ideas of being a tourist and going someplace special that others would agree is touristy - judging by how many people actually go there each year, like Rome, Paris, the Far East, Orlando, NYC, etc.. Although the remote would also qualify, like Antarctica, Everest, Victoria Falls, or Patagonia.
So many places I'd like to take beautiful photographs!
And of course share on Fstoppers.
I was thinking along your lines, Federico... that something beyond just about any picture for any reason was the primary intent of the contest. In which case, travel is more a domain of the mind than the place. I guess we're over-thinking it.
Interestingly enough, you proved 2 things. Not understanding, and being one of them yourself.
So, "travel photography" encompases any kind of photo taken far away from your home. I can take a product photo of a bottle of perfume and just because the studio is far from my home town that qualifies as travel photography. It doesn't make much sense to me, but I am not the one who sets the rules.
One of the ideas about travel photography that I anticipated might work its way into the contest is the problem of "over-tourism." There's an interesting Associated Press article dealing with the subject, along with several pictures:
"Too many people, not enough management: A look at the chaos of ‘overtourism’ in the summer of 2024"
https://apnews.com/article/anti-tourism-barcelona-summer-travel-airbnb-d...
As far as travel yes i go places a far drive but mostly just around the city I live in. Like Astro Milky Way why go to the desert with the rattle snakes some 800-1k miles when I have captured the Milky Way over my house under a street light in the middle of the road in a very lit neighborhood. I just go out see the stars and head to the local beach with dark skies and a lit foreground.
“Travel becomes a strategy for accumulating photographs”. - Susan Sontag