Definition:

‘Portrait photography, or portraiture, is a type of photography aimed toward capturing the personality of a person or group of people by using effective lighting, backdrops, and poses.’

Iconic portraiture mood board

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Contemporary Portrait Photography – a reference to an image created that reflects our values, challenges and perceptions today, a photograph from our own time.

Environmental portraiture is a portrait executed in the subject’s usual environment, for example their home or workplace, and typically illuminates the subject’s life and surroundings.

Analysis

This is an environmental portrait of Chicago artist John A. Kurtz in his studio. The location of this photograph makes it an environmental portrait because its where he works and spends most of his time.

The composition and framing of this image draws the eves of the viewer to the center of the image where the subject is. This is through the use of out of focus furniture in the foreground, such as the door frame on the right and book shelf on the left. This gives the effect of looking through a gap to have a sneak peak of someones work life.

The darker shadows created by the furniture in the foreground create a vignette around the sides on the image, again drawing attention to the subject in the image. This effect was created by using a low aperture, probably around f/5.6. Along with this the ISO and shutter speed will have been tweaked to achieve a clear light image in the moderately dark room that it was shot in.

The colour palette of the photograph is mostly earthy colours. Shadows have been darkened and highlights have been lessened to create a more moody feel and tone to the image, but still keeping the vibrancy of the colourful objects on his desk.

When editing this image, the curves appears to have been changed to an s-curve, meaning the darks have been darkened, and the lights have been lightened, creating more contrast within the image.

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