An environmental portrait is a photo of one or more people in their usual environment for example their home or workplace. A good environmental portrait is one which is able to tell you a story or information about the subject of the photo.
For example this photo suggests that the subject is a boxer. This is due to the boxing glove as well as the boxing ring. The use of objects in environmental portraits is extremely useful as it helps people to understand the photo and gives information about the subject.
Why are environmental portraits so important?
Environmental portraits are important as they give us information about a person such as their career or hobbies. We also use environmental portraits to send messages for example during the war photos would be taken to show the conditions of which the soldiers were in. However they aren’t able to reveal everything as that is only a small sector of an entire scene.
This is a good example of how environmental portraits are able to provide information about a situation however it is unable to show the whole scene.