Environmental Portraits

I mostly enjoyed creating the images of Environmental Portraits whilst learning photography because of the techniques that I had to use in order to create good images. Environmental portraits are images of someone in their environment, specifically a portrait of them with the context of what they are doing or where they work behind them. You can learn from doing a project like this because of how you have to frame your image for a better effective image, which will allow you to convey more of the environment’s context. The backgrounds used in environmental portraits are more to show the symbol of someone’s working environment, for example:

A mechanic in his environment of a workshop having a break which can show a lot about a person. Their lifestyle is put on display and depending on what is in the image and what the persons expressions are, it could symbolise a stressful lifestyle/environment or any context the image is trying to show.

A couple images iv taken in this area I enjoyed creating because what is nice about this subject area is that it is all situational in where and when you take the image, you could be anywhere and be in a perfect position to take an environmental image for example one of my images:

Which I had taken with no intention to even use but turned out to be one of my best images in this area. It relates to nostalgia to me because of the times and situation the image was taken at and where the setting is, which to me was a time that I remember in a positive, enjoyable way.

Urban Photography

Urban photography can be created in different ways in photography, sometimes landscapes, close up any many other different ways, its very fluid to how you create your urban images.

Urban images are created in areas like cities or a village or places where there is a compacted and commercial area where people live or come visit. This could be for example New York, London, Jersey in town etc. Unlike Environmental portrait images which are mostly fond of the use of black and white images, Urban images like to be taken with a lot of vibrant colours with unique settings, and uses a lot of different shapes and lighting.

Urban photography is in its best element when there is a lot of movement going on and a people with a quick paste of life because it captures a scene and the context of what goes on in people lives living in urban areas in the cities. Whilst editing these images it is best when using a lot of contrast and vibrancy in the images. This area of photography is closely resembled to street photography because of its looks and methods of how it is made, it creates its own aesthetic. Although some of the images are created to look good and have a good feeling to them, some of the images in Urban photography are created to symbolise something, for example a run down abandoned building that sits in the area that no one uses but people know it is there.

It is close to nostalgia because of the feel that the images create which is very vibrant and the aesthetic makes you think about your “childhood” as a kid or even a teenager, which is how you might of been, running in the streets finding things to do and having fun with the resources of the urban area you live in.