Environmental portraits are a very involved type of portraiture that is a very slow and methodical process requiring interviews and understanding of who the person is. In the end, it requires the photographer to deliver a product that tells something specific about who the subject is.
Jonathan Bielaski has been doing this for years, and knew that he wanted to be a photographer from a very young age. He is based in Toronto, Canada and some of his clients include, Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment (Toronto Maple Leafs, Toronto Raptors and TFC), Sports Illustrated, Billboard Magazine, T+D Magazine, Bard Valley Dates, California Peach and Pear Growers, Home Depot, Lucas Oil, Hydro One, Ontario Pork, Dairy Farmers of Ontario, University of Waterloo, Sheridan, Laurier and the list goes on.
Bielaski said about his own life, ‘When I started out in photography I did not enjoy making portraits and was attracted to still life photography, I now know that it was my attraction to lighting and with shooting these types of images I could master light and its effects. But something was missing–when I was photographing custom motorcycles and custom made products the story about the makers became a huge interest to me. Who they were and where they lived or worked fascinated me. I wanted to capture them in their workspace. People have a story as well as their space, together they complete a visual story and you can capture who they are and what they do in a signal frame’.
I have focused on some of the work that is created by Bielaski because in my opinion it is easy to depict that the subject of focus is a type of environment, I have analysed his work to gain a greater understanding of the concept, environment. Bielaski is a perfect example of someone who captures work environments. In my study I would like to focus on the opposite of working, using the concept of leisure.
This image shows a man in his working environment, from the image we can clearly outline his occupation that is a printer and painter. The image was taken using a high quality film camera in order to pick out the vibrant display around the room. Bielaski uses the rule of 3 to make his images stand out. For example this image is sectioned into a left, middle and right side. On the left we can see the practitioner himself, middle being his working tools and the right being his working station. It is clear that this man is at work due to the way the image is presented. It is often found that the subjects of Bielaski images are found on the left or right side of the image, not often central. This gives a wider display of what is going on around the working environment.
One of Bielaski’s main inspirations is Benrd and Hilla Becher, this is because he believes that the ism they focused on was important to how photography has shaped itself today. Again it is clear that Bielaski uses typography to present his images since all of the images he creates are based around the same thing being working environments. Similar to the above picture this image shows a man in his working environment, however the man does not look so content with his job. The image below shows a happy man. This could be the concept of how content people are with their working environment.
