Mind map Plan For Photoshoot

Environmental portraiture is a photograph in which shows a person in their natural environment.

I have written down a few ideas of what type of settings I’d like for my photos, I’ve been inspired by Mary-Ellen Mark’s work so I plan to add elements of her own style in my work such as making some of my images in black and white to make my images more abstract which will make them more interesting.

I also plan to take photos of people in their familiar environments, for example, inside their homes or on a childhood street.

Environmental photographers

Letizia Battaglia was an Italian photographer and photojournalist. Although her photos document a wide spectrum of Sicilian life, she is best known for her work on the Mafia. 

Another example of a photographer that takes environmental photos is Henri Cartier-Bresson. He was a humanist photographer influenced by surrealism. His work had helped establish photojournalism as an art form.

As seen in both of these photographers’ work, environmental portraits are photos that capture people in their everyday lives/environments and almost tells the story of how they live or work by their surroundings and maybe clothing.

We use this genre of photography to try and capture the personality, identity, soul, and emotions of a person by using the background, atmosphere, poses and lighting. They capture a part of a persons life and tells a story about their backgrounds and how they are living their lives.

I identified my best images out of my photoshoot and colour coded them on the basis of which ones I was definite on using and the ones I was unsure about. When I had similar images that I struggled to decide between, I compared them closely and then flagged the one I believed had more detail and had a more aesthetic composition.

This was my favourite image. It looks very candid and natural as she is mid-laugh which tells a lot about her character. I had many photos similar to this image but I felt the way her hair was blowing looked best like this. She is holding books in her hand which tells us she is still in education, and the smile suggests she is enjoying her time. I wanted to photograph her like this as it is a place she comes to everyday to spend time with her friends at school which is an important aspect of her life. I put this image into black and white because I think it looks a lot better this way.

Similarly, I like this image for the same reasons, but I increased the saturation to enhance the colours around her as I feel that the bright green compliments her hair and the environment around her. I used natural lighting as this was outside on a bright day as I thought it would look best. I used my mobile phone to take these images as it was in the moment.

The leaves all coming together and overlooking her and in a twisted way behind her adds more to the image and fills up the background which I really like. Because she is wearing black, the colour of the nature brings more life into the image. I feel that this makes her stand out more because she is the only part of the image that is more dulled down, showing contrast. The bench she’s sitting on has a lot of texture due to the brown paint being rubbed off which shows how many other people sit here on a day-to-day basis, maybe even with her.

This image has a relaxed expression and posture, she almost seems bored. I think this reflects her outlook onto school as a place she finds boring as she would rather be out with her friends instead. I really like the way she is sat on the stairs and leaning over because it’s quite unique. The background has been blurred as she is the focal point of the image. The blue that she is wearing stands out from the neutral and plain colours as it is contrasted.

I took this image of a science teacher at school. She’s smiling which tells me that she really enjoys taking part in experiments but also teaching younger people who may aspire to have a job like her in the future. She has set out test tubes and beakers with different colours inside for her students to learn as she demonstrates the experiment in the image. I wanted to photograph her because she is in an environment which could inspire people of younger ages to have a job like this in the future.

You can see the colourful posters on the wall which she uses to engage her students in her lessons. As she is wearing a lab coat, this gives the image authority and tells us that she knows what she is doing. The equipment spread across the table gives the image texture and details to search around the image with, jumping out from the off-white walls which makes them appear more.

I used vignette on the corners of the image as I felt that this will point her out more to the viewer. I like the way she is towards the side of the image as we get a large perspective on the view of the classroom.

I really like these three images I took of a family member at work. She is an occupational health worker where each day, she has people of all backgrounds, lifestyles and jobs come and see her. She analyses whether they are fit for work or not, checking their hearing, lungs, blood pressure, etc. She works very hard to make sure people feel comfortable during this regardless of who they are. When she is not doing these tests, she is on the computer in meetings, setting up clinics or emailing.

I wanted to photograph her because I feel like she plays a very important role in other peoples lives which goes unnoticed, so I wanted to capture that.

The way she is wearing a mask, gloves and a plastic apron shows that she is experienced in this and is prepared, knowing exactly what she is doing. The shifted keyboard on the desk behind her tells me that she has been busy typing, organising all the appointments. I also feel that in the 2nd image, the use of the yellow disposal tub makes the photo more interesting because we can see exactly what it is she does when she is mid-preparation. You can see in the background there are many cabinets and file cupboards in dull cupboards which don’t look enticing at all, suggesting that is the worst part of the work as they have all colour taken out of them in comparison to the rest of the room which is more saturated.

“An environmental portrait is a portrait executed in the subject’s usual environment, such as in their home or workplace, and typically illuminates the subject’s life and surroundings”.

Throughout history, Environmental Portraiture has been an admired by artists and photographers. It is seen to be a form that addresses social and political issues relating to its natural or urban environment. The purpose of ‘Environmental’ portraiture is to illuminate the subject’s life and surroundings. The images are taken to instead appreciate a story or backstory to the person or the job/ activity they may be doing.

Key Features

• formal (posed) – This is when a person is sitting or standing in a fixed position in a particular way to convey something

• head-shot – only the head face and occasionally shoulders

• half body – Only half of the body is on show, usually down to the torso

• three quarter length – Only three quarters of the body is shown, usually up to knees / full length body shot

The angle of a photo can really influence the outlook . The impression of a photo can change depending on the angle that the person is is captured from, an example of this could’ve been from the side, diagonally above, or directly above. These angles are named high angle, low angle and canted angle.

• The colour of the photograph can also be either black and white or colour. The difference between these two can completely change the impression of the photos taken. For example, a black and white photo can infer a more emotional impression of the portrait and add imagination, drama and mystery. However, a black and white image could also do the opposite and infer a less emotional and possibly a more formal, aged impression. The different shadows and effects on a black and white image could be used to juxtapose each other within a composition for a more dramatic effect.

However, a coloured picture can be used to guide the person looking at it, where you want them look and brighter colours can be used to highlight a focal point, where duller coloured can show less important elements. Coloured images can also influence how they feel about what they see and have a better idea of the message the image is trying to convey.

Vanessa Winship 

Vanessa Winship is a British photographer born in 1960 who works on long term projects of portrait, landscape, reportage and documentary photography. These personal projects have predominantly been in Eastern Europe but also the USA.

She uses black and white photographic film in natural light. For her work in a reportage or street style she has used a 35 mm hand-held camera, for her landscape work she has at times used a medium format camera and for her portraiture work she has at times used a 5×4-in large format camera. She says of the difference between using 35 mm and large format that “Each methodology makes for a different relationship with my subjects [and] both have their own beauty for me”.

In her series Sweet Nothings she has been taking photographs of schoolgirls from the borderlands of Eastern Anatolia. She continues to take all photographs in the same way; frontal and with enough distance to capture them from head to toe and still include the surroundings. Personally, I like her work because she is bringing political and realistic portraits to keep them natural. Environmental portraits are also to associate with the people being photographed and they tell a story of the people by using the background. This is a good way to make a photograph political which links to Vanessa’s work since she is a documentary photographer.

Winships work focuses on cultural diversity and lifestyle from using environmental portraits.

My emotional response to these portraits definitely varies depending on what aspect I focus on. Overall the photo reminds me the different cultural habit and lifestyles I forget exist in the world. In this album of images, she also uses young children from head to toe in the frame. She may be portraying the vulnerability and innocence of the children by showing them in as it looks school uniform and their height. She also uses a series of two children to portray connection and family. This makes her photos unique and reminds me that family is important and valued everywhere in the world.

These photos were taken in black and white possibly to make them look older and vintage which links to the theme nostalgia. As they are children as well this links to the theme as well. She uses natural lighting with a clear sense of shadowing. She may of used black and white to emphasize the depth of shadows. Especially in the middle one which seems to look like a school in the background which tells us they are educated.

As I can see, the two people are normally physically touching which gives off a sense of warmth and connection. However, this contrasts to the interaction they are giving with the camera as they are not really showing an emotion. They are numbly staring at the camera which doesn’t tell us a lot on how they are feeling. Overall the physical touch gives off a growing up in a family and caring lifestyle. However majority of her images are in black and white which ultimately make the images feel nostalgic which also links to the fact they are children, although it would be interesting to see the background, colours to be able to tell the weather and what time of day for the outside for pathetic fallacy. On another note, I like how the picture is a head to toe frame of the children and how there is more than one.

Newman was a Jewish photographer who created environmental portraits as his main style of photography. Particularly after the war he captured a very famous shot of a man called Krupp. He started working with photography as a medium in 1938 while working in a chain of portrait studios in Philadelphia. It was here he found his love for creating documentary style photos himself. In 1941 his work was featured in it’s first exhibition and he began to produce environmental portraits as they are know today. After moving home due to the war in 1942.1 In 1945 his Philadelphia Museum of Art one-man exhibit, ‘Artists look like this’ was recognised around the world quickly allowing Newman to open his own studio in 1946 also becoming a member of the American Society of Magazine Photographers (ASMP.) His work grew greatly in popularity as more exhibitions and purchases of his work happened. Over his life time he won many awards and took photos that hoard such strong messages and reasons with what appears to be a simple snapshot portraits that even now his work is world widely famous.

This photo has many different aspects to it as it is a highly emotive, powerful photo. There is a lot of history and tension within the subject of the photo and the photographer which while I don’t find the tension is the main aspect of the photo there is a huge aspect of intimation within the image. Newman purposefully created this by using the lighting and pose of Krupp as he felt it was a great way of portraying Krupp’s true character. It was a unique situation in general as Krupp was a huge part of supporting the Nazi’s with suppling them with weapons and other equipment during WW11 so when Newman a Jewish photographer was asked to take the photo of Krupp he originally declined before then accepting and making it his aim to have a goal of personal revenge against Krupp hence the portraying of his true character from Newman’s composition of the photo. This led to Krupp being furious when he saw the shot but Newman felt satisfied with his accomplishment, ‘a little moment of revenge’ this quickly became one of Newman’s best photos.

Image Analysis

It is an emotional shot, holding a lot of anger and intimidation within it due to the historical context of the shot. Krupp who is the subject of the image is illuminated in an unusual manor by having the lighting rear and the side makes Krupp’s eyes become quite dark and less noticeable making him appear sinister and unfriendly. There are harsh lines though tout the image starting with the two large pillars ether side of the subject framing him with blocky, dark, imposing features, then leading onto the industrial background of the shot has lines of light filtering through the roof. The colours of the image are dark or a rusted orange adding to the feel of danger as it’s not inviting and instead almost forces the viewer to look into Krupp’s eyes which are also dark and not very visible in the shot. Krupp himself had a weathered face from age and Newman highlighted this in his choice of lighting creating deep lines and grooves all over Krupp’s face furthering his appearance of an imposing, harsh character. Newman used perspective to his advantage, by putting Krupp’s o a close depth of field and the rest of the shot has a fairly long depth of field it encourages the viewer to look at Krupp’s and enforces his not necessarily good authority.

August Sander became invested in environmental portraiture during the 20th century. He lived in a large town in Germany and strived to complete a goal of taking images of every person who lived there. Although this is an almost impossible task due to the huge population, he managed to captured hundreds of people from different backgrounds, social status and occupations. This documented the German society’s ways of life in-between the two World Wars, revealing how each person had a different story to tell whilst living in a Nazi-powered country.

In a society where social status was crucial, he took images of upper class, middle and working class – this showed the relationship that each had with one another and the comparisons/differences they shared. He categorised each image in order of class and profession in typological studies. His work inspired many other photographers after him notably Bernd and Hills Becher.

Typology:

A Typology is:

 a set of images made with a common subject or idea in mind, repeated through out the set. 

August Sander had roots in this form in 1929 with his series of portraits ‘The Face of Our Time’. This was later continued by Bernd and Hills Becher who had been heavily influenced by Sander. They began documenting German industrial architecture in 1959. The couple described their subjects as ‘buildings where anonymity is accepted to be the style’.

Each image had been replicated as it was shot from the exact same angle and distance from the same building, documenting how the building would change over time going unnoticed. This not only makes the viewer become more considerate of their surroundings, but question the subject’s reasoning/place in the world.

August Sander’s work:

August Sander’s environmental portraiture was usually containing the subject’s full body and portrayed in black and white. The subject usually had a neutral expression in their workplace, people such as farmers, architects, nuns, gypsies and plenty more. This shown all sides of the German society where he lived.

Analysis of his work:

August Sander

I have chosen to write about August Sander because his work intrigued me. I think all of Sander’s photographs create a huge feeling of time as they are in black-and-white and are taken of people in the 20th century.

August Sander was a famous German photographer who lived a long life, 1876-1964. Sander’s photography career began when he was a teenager. Acquiring his first camera in 1892, he took up photography as a hobby and, after military service, pursued it professionally, working in a series of photographic firms and studios in Germany. After photographing local farmers, Sander was inspired to produce a series of portraits of German people from all classes of society. In the mid-1920s, Sander began his decades-long project ‘People of the Twentieth Century‘, but in the 1930s his work fell into disfavor and was banned by the Nazis. Although his project couldn’t have been completed, it includes over 600 photographs divided into seven volumes and nearly 50 portfolios. The photographs from this project are all mostly black-and-white portraits documenting Germans from various social and economic backgrounds in the 20th century.

The artist I have decided to focus on is Michelle Sank.

She is a South African photographer who was born in Cape Town. She lived there till 1978 and she moved to England in 1987.

Her images reflect a preoccupation with the human condition and too this end can be viewed as social documentary. Her work encompasses issues around social and cultural diversity.

Some examples of her work include:

In this photo she decided to photograph an elderly woman in what seems like her home. Sank depicted the woman to look comfortable. She managed to make the woman seem very wise and almost powerful in the photo.

My emotional response to this photo definitely varies depending on what aspect I focus on. Overall the photo makes me feel comforted and almost safe because of the stereotypical thought of older people, that they are sweet loving people. And because of the angle the photo was taken, it almost gives the illusion that the viewer is looking up. This is because the woman is sat down making the eye view of this photo the hight of whoever Sank wanted the viewer to imagine was looking at this woman. To me it makes me think of a child and a child would definitely be looking up to this woman, almost as a roll model.

This photo was what seems like taken in natural light. And the backdrop seems to be the comfort of the woman’s home making the photo seem more comfortable and somewhat safe. The shadows and the dimensions don’t seem forced and look natural due to the natural light used to take the photo.

The leading lines in this photo seem to be vertical, you can see that on the couch, the frame of the glass shelf behind the model, the curtains and the radiator. If I were to over analyse this information, I would say that the use of this linework would back up my thoughts about looking up to the woman in the photo because of how the lines travel up through the photo.

Another example of Michelle Sank’s work would be ;

In this photo Michelle decided to photograph a young woman in what seems like her bedroom. Sank decided to make this woman stare straight into the camera maybe to give a more intimidated feel to the photo. In this photo Michelle definitely showed the difference between cultural differences and stereotypes, in the first photo before, the woman was shown to be of some kind of wealth based on the clothing she wore and the sophistication of the photo in general, while in this photo the woman seemed to be in more generic clothing and is you can see, the wall in her bedroom seemed to be broken or a layer of paint has worn away or been broken off. This could show social standing differences through little details in both photographs.

The emotional feeling this photo gives me in particular is more intimidation while still giving a feeling of comfort and relaxation. The intimidation comes from the glare the model is giving the camera and also the observation that her hands are in her pockets. However the comfort and relaxation feeling comes from the fact that the woman gives a slight smile in the photo almost making her inviting and kind looking. Also, the idea that the woman is in her own bedroom gives the feeling of comfort because she is in her own home and is safe where she is.

Emotional:

• Intimidating
• Uneasy
• Creepy
• I like the photo because it makes me think about the backstory and meaning behind it.

Visual:

• Looks like a train factory
• Dull
• Dark lighting, lots of shadows
• Looks a bit abandoned and dirty/rusty
• Artificial lighting
• Shallow depth of field
• Old white man-main focus point, subject of the image-staring into the camera, makes viewer feel uncomfortable
• Dark surroundings
• Symmetry

Technical:

• Balanced composition from the 2 pillars either side making the main subject centered
• Line of symmetry
• Losing focus and detail the further back you go behind the subject so the main subject is focused and the rest is blurry
• Lighting is from either side of his face so the middle of his face is dark shadowy.

Conceptual

Taken from Los Angeles Times:

“In 1963 Jewish photographer Arnold Newman was commissioned by Newsweek to take a portrait of Alfred Krupp, a convicted Nazi war criminal. At first, Newman declined the offer. The Jewish American photographer saw the convicted war criminal as the devil and wanted to put a knife in his back. But Newman did proceed with the job. A sinister-looking man, Krupp was seated on a platform with his factory in the background. Newman asked him to lean forward. Krupp clasped his hands together under his chin. “My hair stood on end,” Newman would later say. It was considered one of the most important photos by the man who became known as the father of the environmental portrait.”https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/la-et-cm-arnold-newman-photographer-20190613-story.html

Contextual

• 1963

Examples of Arnold Newman’s photography:

Who is Arnold Newman?

Arnold Newman was an American photographer, born in 1918 and died in 2006. From 1936 to 1938, Newman attended the University of Miami then later became an assistant in a Photography studio. In 1941, Newman had his first major exhibition in New York, where he eventually opened his own Portrait studio in 1946 after visiting the City frequently. Arnold Newman was best known for his Environmental Portraits, featuring various artists, writers, political leaders, scientists and more, typically in their own space or somewhere constructed to fit their character. Some of these people include Pablo Picasso, Marilyn Monroe, Jean Cocteau and Igor Stravinsky, many of these images published within magazines such as Time, Look, Life and Harper’s Bazaar.

Image Analysis

Emotional

This photograph makes me feel quite intimidated as the man in the image appears unfriendly and stern and the surroundings look cold and harsh. The positioning of his hands also give the impression that he is plotting an evil scheme, this adds to the oppression.

Visual

This image consists of dull colours with a lack of natural light and was taken in an industrial place. The subject’s aged, stern appearance fits in with the background, which looks like a train factory because it appears like it would be a manly and hard workplace. The fact that the subject is wearing a suit implies that he has authority, therefore, he may be the boss of the factory. The serious look on his face, texture of his skin and the background together all create the impression that the subject is firm and solemn. In this image, there are also many dark tones which may represent the subject’s personality and morals.

Technical

This image has a wide depth of field as you can see far into it and, in terms of perspective, it looks like it is getting further away. The focus/focal point of this photo is the factory owner and it can be seen that there are various leading lines towards him. These include the lights on the ceiling and the trains each side of him. the two pillars and the fact that he is centred within the photo creates symmetry and a sense of balance. Additionally, the pillars also provide a frame for the subject which makes your focus go towards him. The lighting coming from the rear side in this image is quite unique and peculiar as well as the lights on each side of his face. This lighting gives the subject a slender appearance and creates a darker atmosphere, linking with his sinful nature.

Conceptual

This image was taken by a Jewish Photographer, Arnold Newman, of a German Factory Owner. The Factory owner, Alfred Krupp was a convicted War Criminal, therefore, Arnold Newman’s intention was to portray Krupp as evil in the photograph. He did this by making Krupp look like he was plotting an evil scheme through his facial expressions and positioning and using lighting to highlight Krupp’s features such as his wrinkles and nose, almost as if to make him look unpleasant. After seeing this photo, Alfred Krupp was furious as he was just asking for a regular self portrait.

Contextual

In 1963, Newsweek magazine wanted to commission Arnold Newman to take a photograph of Alfred Krupp, a German industrialist who was a convicted war criminal for helping the Nazis, however, he was later pardoned. Arnold Newman originally declined this offer as he was Jewish, therefore didn’t want to be involved with him, but then changed his mind and wanted to backstab Alfred Krupp so he went and proceeded with the job.