Environmental Portraits: A portrait that depicts someone in their usual working environment or environments they’re associated with such as their work or bedroom and portrays their life and surroundings. These portraits can be either posed or taken as the model is moving/doing their job.

For example:

Environmental portraits are often used in order to show how different people’s lives are from one another and how no-one spends their days in the same way whether it be due to a job, a hobby or more. Each portrait explores the nature of the subject and depicts the models day-to-day life, creating a story with by using their natural environment.

A photographer that successfully creates environmental portraits is Mary Ellen Mark who created a project called ‘Ward 81’ where she spent 36 days photographing and interviewing women in a mental intuition who were considered a danger to others and themselves.

Mark made the choice to keep the photos un-posed throughout most of the photoshoot which kept a sense of realism which is also contrasted by the black and white images. The lack of colours takes away some of the models’ humanity which allows the viewer to empathise with the women photographed as they’re treated like wild animals – locked away from society and have no control over what will happen in their lives. Mark’s photos successfully show how these women live and how their surroundings affect them in their everyday life therefore making them admirable environmental portraits.

Plan:

1st Photoshoot [Outside]: I’ll find a jazz band that usually plays in town and photograph them as they play together [if they allow me to]. I’d have a lot of natural lighting which would allow me to use a variety of angles as there would be light around the whole subject. I’d have to check the shutter speed or else I could end up with very blurry photos as I will most likely photograph them as they’re playing and I’d need to be careful about getting close as I don’t want to disrupt their performance.

2nd Photoshoot [Inside]: I’ll ask a friend if I’m able to take photos of them in their room and I’ll mostly use full body shots of them lounging around their room as they would do naturally. I’m mostly going to switch between low and high angles in order to get a more casual look instead of a professional looking portrait as it’ll match the mood of the images, making them look more natural. I’ll potentially get them to do something they enjoy, such as watching a film or playing a video game, in order to get a variety of different shots and use any devices to try get their reflection in the image.

or

I’ll go into a charity shop, and possibly a tattoo parlour, and photograph people working from the waist up, with their consent, and make sure to get their shop/work in the shots. I’ll use a variety of different angles in order to get professional looking images with different parts of their workplace in each shot along with a variety of images that I can look through and edit later on. I think there could be a lot of different objects in the shop that could make an interesting photo.

3rd Photoshoot [2 or more people]: I’ll go to a youth club and set up a day where I’m able to photograph some of the workers as they help out the people there. I’ll need to check who I’m allowed to photograph as some people may not want to be involved in the project and I’ll need to be wary that it may be busy which could make it difficult to take natural looking images. This means I may have to take some posed images – potentially after hours – as there would be less distractions. I’m mostly going to use mid-shots as I think they’ll focus on the people who want to be involved in the project along with a mixture of angles in order to control the exposure as I won’t be able to manipulate the lighting throughout the photoshoot.