“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. The term is most frequently used of a genre of photography”

Portraits often show us what a person looks like, but they can also capture an idea of a person or what they stand for. Portraits can also tell us how a person wants to be seen, and capture a particular mood that the sitter is experiencing.

Arnold Newman was an American, Jewish photographer who its best known for his environmental portraits. He is also famous for taking portraits of well-known cultural figures, for example, Pablo Picasso, Marilyn Monroe and more. Newman has many different photographs of his that are famous.

Image Analysis 1

This photograph is by Arnold Newman of Alfried Krupp who was an industrialist who ran war factories for the Nazis. Krupp insisted on using slave labour where the prisoners were working to death and even the Nazi’s proposed to use free German workers instead. Krupp always held hatred towards Jewish people. However, he was always intrigued by Newmans art.

Newman did’t want to take this photograph originally but after consideration he chose to do it. When positioning Krupp he asked him to lean forward, and Krupp gripped his hands together and rested his chin onto. Newman said ‘he felt the hair stand up on the back of his neck’ and this is when he took the shot. Krupp did not like the photograph at all and was said to be furious, Newman saw this as revenge.

This photograph brings out emotions of being uneasy and intimidated. This is because the subject is an old man who has a sinister look paired with the darkness of the photograph. His earie look is more intense because he is glaring down the camera making it feel like he is looking right at us. The photograph doesn’t much light, the main source being sunlight through the roof windows which reflects off of all of the metallic materials in the backgrounds. Everything behind the man is old, rusty and worn down adding to the uncanny feel.

Image Analysis 2

This is Newman’s famous photograph of Igor Stravinsky who was a Russian pianist, composer and musician. In this photo, he is dominated by a grand piano silhouetted against a white wall, with the composer confined to the corner. This suggests that music was a big part and had a big impact on his life. In this photo, the piano also looks like a music symbol which also represents his love for music.

my best single objects in my opinion are these:

These are the best two single object edits i liked more because i like the colours in the baground and how the shade of the objects blend in so well.

Emotional

The effect of this image makes me feel quite intimidated and devious 😈 . Its very rough and serious as there’s no natural objects in the scene, except for the subject. Also seen as gloomy, dark, uncomfortable, cold and more. He’s almost blocking the viewer away from the picture.

Visual

Cold blue colours, lots of industrial objects in background (a train factory). The subject sits in the bottom centre of the image sitting almost like he has authority over the factory. He’s giving an intimidating look, especially with the harsh shadows on his wrinkly face.

Technical

symmetry and balance. The 2 pillars add to this symmetry, and leads the eyes towards the subject. harsh lighting – not very conventional giving similar lighting to churches or cathedrals (very intimidating). perspective goes to end of factory, with the focus on the subject.

Conceptual

The idea behind the image was to show his views on people who helped the Nazis win the war. He presented this image in a dark and sinister way, perfectly portraying the man in the image.

Contextual

Alfred Krupp was a German industrialist who ran the Krupp empire, a major arms manufacturer during World War II. Convicted as a war criminal for his company’s use of slave labor, he was later pardoned. Despite his pardon, Krupp remained a controversial figure, and his reputation as a ruthless businessman and war profiteer followed him.

Newman, a renowned portrait photographer, initially refused to photograph Krupp due to his own Jewish heritage and Krupp’s dark past. However, he later changed his mind, deciding to use the portrait as a way to express his personal feelings toward Krupp. he later said after taking the photo that ‘shivers when down my spine’

An environmental portrait is a portrait taken in the subject’s usual environment, for example, in their home or place of work. These types of photographs can reveal things about the person photographed, such as where they feel the happiest or most content. Environmental portraits capture people in their natural environment rather than in a studio where photographed can be forced. This way the photos can almost tell a story of the subject since they’re being captured in their own, personal element.

Typology is a single photograph or more commonly a quantity of photographs that share a high level of consistency. The term was first used to describe a style of photography when Bern and Hilla began documenting dilapidated German industrial architecture in 1959. They described their subjects as ‘buildings where anonymity is accepted to be the style’. Every photograph was taken from the same angle, at approximately the same distance from the buildings.

Typographs links to environmental portraits as the photographs are all taken in a similar way, using the same techniques.

My final photo was going to be this one:

But then i edned up taking more photoshoots in the studio and these are what i came up wtih:

first one is the normal image and the second one it the edited one. I also decided to edit them a bit more after and this was how it came out:

more photoshoots and edits:

normal image:

edited images:

For my final image i picked this edit:

I chose the above edit as my final picture because i love how its set and they all just fit in so well together in the photo. Also like the brightness and the texture of it.

for my photoshoot i used loads of different toots and edited them all in different ways. These are the best photoshoots and edits out of all of them, in my opinion.

Normal image:

Edited images:

For all of these photoshoots the texture has decreased and i tried to make as different to each other as possible. I was playing around with the colours and the brightness and the highlights and i ended up liking them like it’s show above.

This is a image of how i edited the first image of them all above.

I then decided to take photos of more than one obejcts and edit them and this is how it turned out.

Normal image:

Edited images:

For the second photoshoot in the above i decided to make it a bit more different to the others and change the background of it, i’m not quite sure i like it, i like how its set and the shadows of the objects but all together i dont think its that good. Out of those three the one i liked the most of the first one because i like how the texture is nice and smooth and i like how its nice and bright in the middle then goed dark on the outside.

Arnold Newman, one of the most accomplished portrait photographers of the twentieth century. Arnold Newman has been credited with popularising the ‘environmental portrait,’ which places the sitter in surroundings that suit their profession or skill. Newman said of his sitters, “it is what they are, not who they are, that fascinates me,” and he made his reputation photographing a wide range of highly influential cultural and political figures of the twentieth century, often in their most telling environments, be it home or work. He became known for his ability to thoughtfully capture the personalities of his subjects through their expressions and surroundings. While commonplace today, this technique was not widely used in the 1930s when Newman was learning his craft, pathing the new era of portrait photography.

Newman spent a lot of time refining the background and the subject to work together well and to present stories and emotion. He would designing floor plans, equipment, schedules, and possible poses before the actual shoot even took place. This highlights how important he considered his work to be.

He managed to take photos of many influential figures like:

Explaining the portraits of famous people

In The Picasso portrait, Picasso looks directly at the camera with a hand resting on his forehead, looking more serious than in many other photographs of him. He tried to highlight his facial expressions and face blemishes, hardly focusing on the background.

In the john F. Kennedy environmental portrait, Arnold Newman focused heavily on the background (the white house) with the 35th presidents youthful and elegant appearance making him seem very powerful, looking over the country.

The Marilyn Monroe portrait (one of the most celebrated actresses of all time), has a deep impact on the views. The photograph is notable for its composition, showing an intimate glance between the two subjects. The piece also shows the contrast between Monroe’s glamorous public persona and Sandburg’s more serious and scholarly image.

Other works

What is environmental portraits?

Environmental portraits are typically images that show a subject in their workplace, usually undertaking their profession. They don’t always have to be in a workplace, they can also be images where the subject is linked to the background and shows the subject’s life and surroundings. The environment behind the subject helps tell the story about who they are, what they do, or what their passion is. Photographers like taking environmental images because they are visual storytellers and they like to tell stories with out the use of words. These images reveal the story behind a stranger, and makes the viewer feel closer to them in a way.

Mood board:

This style of photography makes me feel inspired because I can learn about different work environments and how they have changed over the years. I also like how each photo has a different feeling to it from the subject’s body language and their facial expression.

What is typology?:

Typology in photography is a single photograph or a body of photographic work, that shares a high level of consistency usually of similar objects.

As we can see here, there are 9 photographs all including trees of similarity. This is called typology because it is a suite of images in relation to the same subject. In this case, the tree is the main subject of the image.