Fantastic Environmental Portraits
An environmental portrait of a man sitting by a fire in Kolkata.
A great environmental portrait is essential to a photo essay as it has the capacity to tell a story in a single image.
The purpose of this post is to share with you the recipe I follow to make beautiful, life affirming environmental portraits that explore the Human Condition.
The key to creating a great environmental portrait is to construct the image in such a way that allows you to explore something of the essential nature of the subject depicted.
Central to this undertaking is to depict people in environments to which they seem to belong.
I photographed this man, sitting by a fire, while on a self motivated photo walk exploring the backstreets of Kolkata.
Street photography provides a wealth of fascinating opportunities for the travel photographer and it’s always a highlight for me to meet and photograph local folk going about their daily life.
Environmental portraits are special and require a somewhat unique approach. Nonetheless, they remain portraits.
That’s why, under normal circumstances, I’d ensure the subject is positioned nice and close to the camera so as to emphasize their importance in the image.
However, as the fire was so important to the story I wanted to tell, I positioned myself in such a way to, more or less, equally balance the importance of the fire and the man within the composition.
The Secret to Great Environmental Portraiture
To be a great photographer you need to stay in control of the process of making photos. And I don’t just mean understanding how to use your camera.
When creating environmental portraiture I see the photographer’s role to be as much that of a facilitator as an artist.
Your outcome should be guided by a desire to record the subject in a particularly expressive or decisive moment.
Of course, as is the case in traditional portraiture, the photographer may have to provide significant direction to the subject to achieve the desired expression, pose or gesture.
Photography is created in the moment and even the most introverted individual has the capacity to create beautiful environmental portraiture.
But to do so they have to step out of the shadows and take control.
Environmental portrait of a working man at the Botanical Gardens in Kolkata.
Locations for Environmental Portraits
Location is essential to creating great environmental portraits. Needless to say it’s important to select a location in which the subject appears to belong.
Some examples of locations that are well suited to environmental portraits include the following:
Home
Work
Recreational hangout
Sporting location
Site where hobby takes place
Place of worship
I met this working man at his place of work in the Botanical Gardens in Kolkata, India.
It looks very much like a clearing in the jungle when in fact the gardens are on the edge of one of the world’s largest cities.
But this is not England and there are parts of these gardens that do evoke a sense of the wild.
The setting was wonderful and all I needed to do was to introduce myself and ask to make a picture.
The whole process was conducted within a few seconds and, after thanking the man, I was ready to move on.
But I knew I’d made a powerful and emotive image.
His position within the frame is ideal as, again, there’s a balance that’s been achieved between the subject and the background.
However, the use of a shallow depth of field does place importance on the subject by de-emphasizing the background.
It’s good to remember that, in environmental portraits, the location becomes an integral part of the final photograph.
Consider this fact carefully in your composition and work hard to relate the subject to their surroundings.
A lovely environmental portrait of a boy in his father's print workshop.
Incorporating Props Into An Environmental Portrait
Another way to help make the subject look and feel at home in their surroundings is to include one or more props in the image.
A butcher could be wearing their (once) white apron and be pictured holding a butcher’s knife.
A painter might be depicted wearing a smock and holding a brush and paint palette.
I was so happy to meet this young boy and his father while exploring the backstreets of Kolkata. The father was a printer and the photo was made in his factory, which was compact in the extreme.
I’m confident that composition is central to the success of this image. It’s based around the notion of circles arranged into a triangular shape.
Actually this is a practice that I became aware of as a child, when staring at album covers while listening to music.
During my formal photography education I spent a morning in the library and discovered this technique as far back as Da Vinci’s painting of the Last Supper.
That was enough for me and I abandoned my research at lunch time. I now know this technique of arranging circles into a triangle has existed in art for many, many centuries.
Why? Because it produces a cohesive and harmonious result.
I feel the shallow depth of field is helpful as it’s reduced the chance of a fairly cluttered background becoming a distraction.
Finally the black and white treatment helps as it introduces the notion of nostalgia to the image. I think that treatment is completely appropriate to the scene in question.
Environmental portrait with the subject photographed off centre shows a colorful background.
Subject Placement Within The Frame
I can’t understate how important it is that the subject in your environmental portraits seems to belong within the surroundings (i.e., environment) in which they are depicted.
But to see the surroundings we often need to move our subject off centre, towards one edge of the frame, so that they don’t cover up or block the background.
This approach will allow the viewer’s attention to, very briefly, scan the surroundings prior to being drawn back to the subject.
That’s particularly true if the subject’s eyes are illuminated and/or they are separated from their surroundings through a shallow depth of field (DOF).
To achieve the ideal composition simply move in close with a wide angle focal length lens on you camera.
As you can see the child was quite apprehensive about the whole process. I certainly didn’t want to upset him so I went about making the photo as quickly as I could.
After asking for permission from the child’s mother I very carefully approached the child and positioned myself in such a way to produce an interesting composition.
That involved framing the scene to emphasize the following elements of composition.
The balance between the textured yellow and smoother green columns.
The repetition of those same yellow and green background elements.
The diagonal line that leads from right to left across the frame.
Horizontal orientation usually best showcases the environment in an environmental portrait.
Camera Orientation For An Environmental Portrait
Both vertical and horizontal framing can be used to construct an environmental portrait.
Usually horizontal (i.e., landscape) framing provides the best option as it allows for the inclusion of more environment within the frame.
However, on occasions (e.g., religious minister inside church), vertical framing may be better suited to both the subject and the environment.
Environmental portrait of a shopkeeper in his tiny, colorful shop in Kolkata.
Lens Choice For An Environmental Portrait
Of course lens choice is only the beginning. Just as important as the focal length is the way you use that lens.
The best way to make an environmental portrait is to stand close enough so that the person in question is clearly identifiable while, at the same time, ensure you’re able to include a sufficient amount of their environment to better tell the story.
Under normal circumstances the closer you get to the subject the more dominant they’ll become in the composition.
Be aware though, that the closer to the subject you get the more background will be excluded from your composition.
Use of a mild wide angle (e.g., effective 35 mm focal length) lens enables the photographer to move up close and engage with the subject while retaining much of their surroundings within the frame.
The wider angle of view associated with that focal length will include more of the surroundings (i.e., above, below, left and right) than would be the case with normal or telephoto focal length lenses.
The wide angle lens also provides a more three dimensional feeling of space and depth. It does this by helping to separate the scene into distinctive areas of foreground, mid ground and background.
A mild wide-angle lens always possesses a quite special property when it comes to photographing the average face.
When employed close to your subject it acts to draw the face in a relatively dramatic manner, while providing a sense of greater separation between the subject and the background.
Telephoto focal lengths, on the other hand, tend to compress the sense of visual space between the subject and the background.
The slightly more dramatic perspective associated with a mild wide angle lens can produce a more visually arresting image.
That’s not to say you can’t make even more visually dynamic environmental portraits with focal lengths wider than 35 mm.
You certainly can, but the success of your image will be dependent, at least in part, on your ability to achieve the following:
Producing a pleasing likeness of your subject.
Controlling the perspective and how much of the surroundings are included in the frame.
If you’re looking to produce an even more dramatic image try a lens with an effective focal length of 24 mm or wider.
Alternatively, try photographing from an extreme (e.g., worms eye or birds eye) angle of view.
Environmental portrait of a boy with his father in Kolkata, India.
Focal Point In An Environmental Portrait
With attention now placed on both the subject and their surroundings, it’s important to ensure that the subject’s face remains the primary focal point (i.e., point of interest) within the image.
It’s good to remember that the objective is to make a particular type of portrait, one that places the subject in surroundings that describe something of who they are or what it is they do.
But it’s still a portrait. To ensure your subject remains the primary focal point within the image make sure they’re properly lit and positioned close to the lens.
Paying attention to this camera to subject distance is particularly important when a wide angle lens is used.
That’s because by fitting more content into the frame a wide angle lens tends to provide the impression that mid ground and background elements are smaller and further away than is actually the case.
Depth Of Field In Environmental Portraiture
Generally speaking you’ll want to blur the background in a portrait photo. You’ll achieve this through a shallow depth of field.
However, as the subjects surroundings are important to the story being told in environmental portraiture, you may choose to gently blur, rather than obliterate the background.
A fast lens is always appealing and a fantastic addition to any photographer’s camera bag.
However, you’ll often want to retain a reasonable degree of information in the background of many of your environmental portraits.
That might mean a more modest maximum aperture (e.g., f/4) may be sufficient for your needs.
And don’t forget that the camera to subject distance also affects depth of field in an image. Put simply, the closer your camera is to the subject the more shallow the depth of field will become.
The above photo of a taxi driver at rest in the back streets of Kolkata illustrates this point perfectly.
I employed a relatively modest aperture of f/4 and photographed quite close to the subject to produce this environmental portrait displaying a pretty shallow depth of field.
It’s interesting how we’re drawn to the sharpest parts of this image, his face, yet we can still make out important elements within his surroundings.
That’s important as those elements help tell the story, without us needing to linger on them.
And check out the lovely bokeh, which can be described as the quality of the shape of the out of focus highlights in the top left hand corner of the frame.
The aesthetic associated with bokeh means that the more rounded the outside edge of the out of focus highlights, the more pleasing the effect.
An interactive environmental portrait of a yogi resting in Kolkata, India.
Interaction In Environmental Portraiture
As a general rule interaction between the subject and photographer and, as a consequence, between the subject and the viewer, is achieved through eye contact.
The eyes are considered as windows to the soul in a great portrait photograph.
You can see how important the eyes are in this interactive environmental portrait of a yogi whom I photographed resting in a temple complex by the banks of the Hooghly River in Kolkata, India.
Photography is a communicative art and great photographs tell us as much about the photographer as they do about the subject.
This interaction between the photographer and the viewer provides a link to the opinions, views and motivations of the photographer.
I believe there’s three distinct, yet interrelated participants involved in any portrait photograph.
I also feel that it’s the relationship between the subject, viewer and photographer that’s at the heart of great portrait photography.
The Environmental Portrait And The Customer
If you’re looking to sell the image to your subject or their mother the mild, wide angle focal length is usually the best option.
If, however, you’re producing images for a wider audience (e.g., photojournalism) than you might be better off employing an even wider focal length, up close, for a more dramatic look.
By selecting a mild, wide angle focal length and moving up close to your subject, you’ll be able to tell the story better.
You’ll do so by depicting your subject in an environment to which they seem to belong in a flattering, yet visually interesting way.
The environmental portrait has been with us for a long time. Many of Europe’s greatest painters created wonderful environment portraits of royalty, religious leaders and working class folk.
Today photojournalists and wedding/portrait photographers frequently employ the environmental portrait to tell the story within a single image.
Including the environmental portrait into your own photography will allow you to better tell the story, within a single picture, and enhance your future photographic opportunities.
I hope this practical guide on how to create beautiful, life affirming environmental portraits enhances your own creativity by helping you make truly great environmental portraiture.
The recipe I’ve provided works just as well when photographing friends, family and the interesting folk you’ll meet on your travels through life.
I really hope it helps. If you believe it does please feel fee to share this post widely and wildly.
India Photography Collection Updated
The environmental portraits in this post are part of my updated India Photography Collection.
There are currently over 50 photos in the collection and more will be added over time. You’ll notice the collection includes portrait, landscape, architecture and religious subject matter.
India is a tough place to travel around. But it’s an incredibly vibrant country with opportunities for great photos around every corner.
And let’s not forget the deeper level of story telling you’ll be able to explore in such a visually arresting country through the environmental portraits you make.