Environmental Portraiture

[PeterToronto]

Greetings guys

If you're like me, you want to continually challenge yourself by improving the portraits that you make. You don't want to crank out those typical cookie cutter posed shots for your clients. Instead, you want to take your portraiture to another level, by capturing the essence and uniqueness of each and every person that you photograph.

Clients often feel that while it's glamorous and exciting to be in a studio setting for the first time, it can be a very intimidating, and clinical place. Environmental portraiture, on the other hand, provides the client with a sense of familiarity, comfort, and ease during the session. So how exactly do you go about choosing an appropriate location for the shoot?

It helps to think about environmental portraiture in the same way that one thinks about real estate. It's all about location, location, and location. Put the person in their own environment that they're most comfortable with, whether it be their home, their place of work, or even their own favourite remote location. When planning out the actual location for your shoot, apply the mantra "work, rest, or play". One, if not all of those locations, will provide the backdrop to tell quite the story about your client.

If you photograph a person in their natural surroundings, the end result will give you more of an insight into the person, who they are, or what they do. In short, one's environment will be the key to unlocking the personality of the person, and that will come through in the resulting images.

As always, if you enjoyed the read, there's more to view on my website. Check it out if you're interested.

Peace
Peter

peter anthony PHOTOGRAPHY - Home

 

[jecobmartin]

Wow nice information but I think if you want to impress, you need to put in some time and effort. Think very carefully with the location when you go out, and do a little pre-planning. Research your subject, ask them questions, and look on the internet at their business, hobby or social interests to find what might be the most appropriate location. Just because this person lives near the beach, may not be enough reason to choose the beach as the location.

 

[georgeshoemoney]

Unlike any other visual image, a photograph is not a rendering, an imitation or an interpretation of its subject, but actually a trace of it. No painting or drawing, however naturalist, belongs to its subject in the way that a photograph does. - John Berger. This says it all!