what is an Environmental Portrait?

An Environmental Portrait is a photograph that captures the subject in an environment they are typically found in, or tell a story of their life and surrounding.

This can also consist of their working environment’s or places they’re associated with. For example An elderly person in a care home, or someone who’s tanned in a sunny environment.

Mood Board:

Mind map –

Environmental Portraits:

• must create a story in the viewers mind about the subject.
• Props – helps establish an identity with the subject.
• shows the subjects environment – e.g. Workplace, home, associated locations.
• Indoor and outdoor photos – creates a Identity to the picture.
• More than one person – creates a setting of tone or emotions.
• Direct eye contact or subjected gaze -.
• Emotions of the subject – helps form that portraits story.

Artist Study –

August Sander:

“It is not my intention either to criticize or to describe these people, but to create a piece of history with my pictures.” – August Sander

Intro:

August Sander, Born in Germany on November 17th 1876, grew up meeting other well known photographers in Germany such as Heinrich Schmeck. seeing his interest in photography, Sanders’ uncle helped him buy his first Camera.

Later going on to study under apprenticeships in the military and in berlin and other cities, he received further education as an observer at the Royal Academy of Art.

His photographs, taken of thousands of people around Germany, capture little to none emotion from the subjects, yet tell an enriching in depth story of their life’s. Collected in a Portfolio spanning from photos as early as 1904 all the way until his death in 1964, he named this era of art ‘people of the 20th century’. His photos can be seen to date through many time periods, documenting a society’s growth or down fall and different social classes.

A visual demonstration of this can be seen through the change in military clothing made by the changing of rulers of the country. The old era of Kaiser Wilhelm’s imperialistic uniform to Adolf Hitler’s Fascist regimes uniforms shows this.

Individual photo study –

Konditor (Pastry Chef), 1928

Like many of his photos, this one, to me clearly demonstrates the factors that make up Sander’s genre of an Environmental Portrait.

Taken on a technologically outdated large formatted camera that was made up of glass negatives and long exposure times, this allowed Sander to capture as much detail on his subjects faces, body and environment. According to a letter he sent to another photographer, Sanders photos were taken with a corresponding light filter and a clear fine grained glossy paper, These were then made on a 13 x 18cm plates and then enlarged into 18 x 24cm which is equivalent to a 5 x 7 large image format nowadays.

Usually having a fairly low aperture, this allowed the image to create a 3D effect on the subject, making them standing out yet still containing details of their environment such as in this image I’ve decided to analyse.

The subject’s bowl, flour covered floor and cooking equipment are all still visible to create and formulate his identity.

Shown in the quote I have used, Sander’s creates ‘a piece of history’ with his photographs as by taking these environmental portraits, he immortalises these people from the past.

Other examples:

As mentioned before, Sander followed a set out genre of how he took his photos, capturing the entire subject or as a close up this visually makes us focus on their whole appearance and helps us to recognise their identity of how they are dressed and their environment. Relying on natural lighting to create detail on his subjects faces this can be seen in the middle image that shows a beam of light streaking over the bricklayers face. formulating a contrast to the darkness that surrounds the darkness consumes the lower-half of his clothes it is clear Sanders intent on how me carefully may of positioned the subject for this photograph.

overall, I believe August Sander’s work is a significant demonstration of how an environmental portrait is taken and has a place in Photography as an important foundation for its use.

Inspiration and similarities with other Photographers –

Inspired in his youth by Heinrich Schmeck, Sander’s photography can be seen to take influence in some of his early work.

Being awarded at many exhibitions, Sander’s work can be seen to very influential amongst other photographers. Due to taking photos in a fixed genre of black and white. Others that do something similar can be seen to replicate that.

Alys Tomlinson –

Vanessa Whinship –

Alec Soth –

Photography Elements Analyse –

These are some of my best images from Still Life photoshoot put into a gallery.

These are some of my best Objects edits in an a gallery.

For my first topic into the theme of nostalgia, i believe my outcomes for Still Life, match similarly to the works of Darren Harvey-Regan and Walker Evans.

From this topic I have also learnt a better understanding on my camera handling skills and how to better critique and understand my work by analysis of mine and other photographers work.

Final outcomes:

I have selected these as my final outcomes as I believe they have the same visual qualities of composition and photography elements that where used to make the outcomes of Walker Evans and Darren Harvey-Regan’s Still life images.

Camera settings:

First Edits:

(Before and afters of some of my edits to show my inspiration of Walker Evans and Darren Harvey-Regan) –

Edits –

I believe these images came out well as, too me they are the most similar to Harvey-Regan’s work in terms of lack of shadow and good exposure on the tools, by having a high contrast and clarity I was able to create this effect as the edit is more focused on the object.

These images could be better in terms of lighting – With less brightness to remove the shine on the cutlery. Despite that these to me looked similar to Walker Evans work, By adding a higher clarity it makes seeing the details easier to find.

These images, in my opinion could possibly be better, as they don’t seem bright enough, however I am pleased with their outcome. I decided to make a personal attempt by using a warm brown colour by adjusting the temperature and playing around with the highlights.

I like how these images came out, I feel like these look quite similar to Walker Evans in terms of the use of a grainy background and cold colourless aesthetic that both photographer’s use.

Overall I am pleased with how these Pictures came out, In this photoshoot I decided to take influence from both Walker Evans and Darren Harvey-Regan.

These images are from my Objects photoshoot, apart of my Nostalgia Project.

4 – 5 star rated photos:

(These are also white flagged – meaning they consist of clearly taken photos).

These images, I believe best take inspiration from the works of Walker Evans and Darren Harvey-Regan.

3 – 2 star rated photos:

(These are also white flagged – meaning they consist of mostly clearly taken photos).

These images are good but I feel as if they could’ve been better, some fit my standard but lack in terms of visuals ( E.G. exposure and space).

2 – 1 star rated photos:

(These are black flagged meaning they do not appeal to what I was aiming for during the nostalgia photoshoot).

These images were either poorly done, or not what I wanted for them to come out as.

Camera settings and lighting –

For my photo shoot I used a Canon EOS 4000D, using the manual focus and the features below:

and some on:

Exposure – the amount of light a digital cameras sensors captures when a photo is taken. Too much = over exposed, Too little = under exposed.

Exposure is determined off ISO and Shutter speed.

Aperture – Controls the amount of blur or sharpness around your subject.

Shutter speed – Shows the movement of a fast moving object.

ISO – select the right amount of light you need for your visual effects.

Exposure Metre – shows what level your exposure is at.

White balance – The intensity of colours in an image.

Auto focus – Atomically focuses the camera on the subject of the image.

Manual focus – by adjusting the depth of field and using the focus wheel, an image can be brought into focus without auto-aid.

The set up in the photo is the one I used for my ‘Objects’ photoshoot, this is an example of the type of studio set up that would be used to match with the settings above.

Formalism is the formal and visual elements of a photograph. what these Elements consist of is the line, shape, balance, repetition and rhythm inside a photograph.

Examples:

These images all contain one or more of these elements, either through line, repetition or shape.

The other basic elements to Photography that also make up the visual and formal elements consist of:

Lines – Lines In photography can alternate in their appearances. This can be shown through either straight or curved, vertical or horizontal, Man-made or organic to nature.

Lines can also be orientated in different ways to make a photograph more diverse, Lines often help to connect points in an image and almost every image has them.

Examples:

(oriented lines)

(Lines in nature)

(man-made lines)

Shape – Shapes, formed by lines and shadow, are the visible makeup characteristics of an object within an image. Shapes in a photograph can be made up of familiar or unfamiliar shapes such as a circle or a merge of different ones.

Defined by their value through the following elements Texture, Brightness/Darkness, Pattern can define what becomes a shape in a photograph. Shapes are a key feature in photographs as its one of the first elements you visualise.

examples:

(Familiar – Diamond shape)

(Unfamiliar – newly created shape)

Form – Form is the differentiation from shape as it portrays 3D elements rather than the 2D elements shape portrays. Form is the shape and structure of something in a photograph.

Similar to shape, form can be put into 2 categories of natural and unnatural. Geometric forms are the familiar, such as cubes, pyramids, cylinders. Whilst Organic forms are the unfamiliar, created out an amalgamation of more than one. Form, yet again like shape is almost everywhere in an image.

Examples:

(Geometric – the familiar, the form of the human body)

(Organic – the unfamiliar, shown by the form of this spitfire – shadow helps to define it.)

Texture – By definition, Texture is the visual or tactile surface characteristics and appearances of something. By using what we describe as textures in real life (e.g. rough, smooth, soft, wet) we can do the same for texture.

Similar to form, texture can be shown by 3D appearances, tonality and variations. Texture in photographs can appear in scenic photos such as buildings or trees. Texture can change however there is always factors that leave them up for perception.

Texture is not only limited by objects, but also facial features on people.

(Texture – shown through an old wall)

Colour – Colour in photography are made up of the hue and saturation and brightness of an image. It falls into 3 properties: Hue ( the colour), Value (the balance of white to black) and Saturation (the intensity or purity of a colour).

Colours in photography can be seen through light, made artificially or naturally. Colour is also present in all images other than grayscale photographs. Colour helps set the tone of an image and can visually express the emotions behind the picture.

(Vibrant Hue and Saturation portray this image in a positive light)

(Natural lighting – created through the sun setting)

Size – Size in photography is the physical magnitude or proportionate dimensions of an object. Size varies in a photograph based on how its scoped, this is because size can become an optical illusion in a picture via shot-angle. By seeing something familiar sized (like a person) it can scope to us the size of the scene.

Smaller sized objects (like flowers) can be sized up by photography making the viewer able to pay attention and appreciate the smaller things in life, both figuratively and literally.

(By having a person in the shot, it puts to scope the size of the F-22 Raptor)

(By closely sizing down the shot, things not usually seen are shown in more detail)

Depth – Depth in photography, also made up of shape, space and form, is recreated through the size and depth of the surroundings of the image.

In relation to size, depth is created through the space of photograph. Visual indicators in depth can convey where the viewer must look, this can be shown by blurred areas or certain perspectives on a subject/object in the photograph.

Depth can also depend on the texture of an image, with different gradients of texture creating it.

(depth – long depth of field textures the images surroundings)

(Low depth of field helps create a deeper focus on the subject of the image)

Walker Evans –

1955 – “Beauties of the common tool.”

Darren Harvey-Regan –

2013 – “Beauties of the common tool, Rephrased II.”

Taking inspiration from Walkers work in the 1950’s, Darren Harvey-Regan made his own attempt on his original photoshoot.

Walker Evans –

As Walker Evans puts it, “Among low-priced, factory-produced goos, none is so appealing to the senses as the ordinary hand tool. Hence, a hardware store is a kind of offbeat museum show for the man who responds to good, clear ‘un-designed’ forms”. This can be vividly shown through his portfolio he named “beauties of the common tool”. Using Objects he had in his home, Evans was able to create his photos, using props to make the tools look as if they have a 3D levitated affect. Using what he had, his overhead lighting of his home, was the desired effect he wanted to use to diminish the opacity of shadows had on the objects, This allowed lots of texture and clarity to be seen on the tools.

(His portfolio can be found here).

https://fotoform.co/walker-evans-beauties-of-the-common-tool

Darren Harvey-Regan –

Inspired by Evans work, Harvey-Regan put together his own portfolio named ‘Beauty of the common tool, rephrased II’, in which he sawed and then re-welded separate tools together. Advantaged by the modern era, he was also able with studio lighting and editing software to alter his photos to reduce shadows from his photoshoot, Rather than relying on what was around like Evans.

(Under the same name of Evans portfolio, Harvey-Regans work can be found here)

https://www.theravestijngallery.com/artists/

comparison –

Photographing the same genre of still life, both photographers are similar in their composition, however they differ in lighting, texture and clarity. Lighting is noticeably different as Walkers objects shine with the reflection of light, whilst Harvey-Regan’s do not or just slightly.

A similarity they both share can be seen with the use of a Birds Eye shot, capturing their still life images from a camera angle of 90 degrees.

By Using a plain white background Harvey-Regan’s photos are able to be directly focused on whilst Evans allows the grainy texture of the film he used to generate an aesthetic to the objects within the picture.

my personal attempt –

Walker Evans style:

Inspired by the Evans use of partial shadows and reflections of light, i tried to recreate that in this photo.

Darren Harvey-Reagan style:

By using photoshoot i attempted to remove any noticeable details leaving a plain white background and limited shine on the tools like Harvey-Regans work.

These are my Edits from my still life photoshoot.

Camera settings –

Before and after –

Edits –

I feel like these images look good however the first 1 looks to highly saturated compared to the second one because of the the shadows merging with the light better.

I like how these came out as I think the use of greyscale helps bring out the details of the image.

These photos were edited well in my opinion, by using a brown background I converted the lighting to be warmer.

These are my best edits, and believe they best reflect the theme of Nostalgia.