Environmental Portraiture

An environmental portrait is a portrait taken in a location that helps to express the personality of the subject. This can be a place where the subject works or plays, or a room in their own home. The act of moving outside a studio must have a reason, something that it adds to the expression of personality.

The choices of lens, white balance, and any other technical considerations are limitless, but should all be consciously made for the purpose of taking the best shot possible. Like many other forms of photography, portraiture seeks to be more than the literal representation that a simple recording of facts is limited to.

You would be surprised how much easier it is to ask someone if you can take their picture while they work than it is to ask them to be photographed outside of their environment of choice.

• Spend as much time as it takes to get yourself comfortable in the enviroment and your subject comfortable with your presence, there. The conversation you have with the subject not only relaxes them, but gives you ideas for how you wish to portray them in the environment.

• For indoor locations, make clear decisions about the best angle of light available and stand where you can get it.

• If photographing someone at work, let them work and disappear in the background, so you can get them in their natural condition. A shot of a woodworker holding a tool is less interesting than one of them using the tool.

None thus far.