Assignment #1 Environmental Portrait
Location Contacts Due: Week #2 3/3/14
2 Final Prints Due: Week #4 3/17/12
Environmental photography lets you say something about your subject or, more correctly, lets the environment say something about the person or persons in the photograph.
“Environmental” portraits can be portraits taken of people in a situation that they live in (work, rest or play) and/or a place that says something about who they are.
Environmental portraits:
- Give context to the subject you’re photographing
- Give points of interest to shots, but don’t distract from your subject too much
- Help your subject relax
- Often give the viewer of your shots real insight into the personality and lifestyle of your subject
These shots sit somewhere between the purposely posed shots of a studio portrait (they are posed and they are unmistakably ‘portraits’) and candid shots which capture people almost incidentally as they go through their daily life.
For your assignment (if you haven’t guessed it by now!) you are to photograph an environmental portrait of a friend(s), a family member(s), or even a complete stranger(s). Keep in mind that the environment they are placed in should add to the photograph. The background and setting should only enhance the viewers understanding, appreciation, or curiosity of the subject(s).
For week #2, please come prepared to share digital (or traditional) contact sheets with me of a handful of locations you have chosen for your environmental portrait. Please put a good bit of time into researching interesting locations as they play a vital part of the environmental portrait. Edit your location shots down to about a dozen or so varying angles and locations and print them out in a contact sheet format. Please edit the selections and mark the contacts with your favorites (maybe your top 3?) and share them with me upon entering class week #2 3/3/14.
Due for critique are two final prints, at least 8”x10”, of your Environmental Portrait.
Explore some of the below photographers for inspiration:
Irving Penn, Helmut Newton, Brassai, Man Ray, Sante D'Orazio, David LaChapelle, Arnold Newman, Diane Arbus, Nan Goldin, August Sander, Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, Thomas Ruff, Horst P. Horst, Herb Ritts, Annie Leibovitz, Cecil Beaton, Southworth and Hawes, Julia Margaret Cameron, Phillipe Halsman, Gertrude Kasebier, Edward Weston, Edward Steichen, Alfred Stieglitz, Francesco Scavullo, Mary Ellen Mark
Homework:
- Begin your journal and come to class with Location Photographs that inspire you
- Begin scouting/shooting for A1: Environmental Portraits locations
- Create a Location Kit list