Environmental Portrait – 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. They are normally used to reveal something about the subject in the photo particularly in relation to the background. This does not mean it has to be a positive association like the photo Arnold Newman took of Alfried Krupp and the way Newman has framed Krupp to represent the person he is and what he has done.
Typologies – A body of work with a consistent style. Often portrayed in many different forms, some being in a structured group with equal spacing in-between or a particular style in general like the style of environmental portraits. Environmental portraits are often associated with the style of typology as they are always structed images with the same idea of the subject looking into the camera and often centred.
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 surroundings or background is a key element in environmental portraiture, and is used to convey further information about the person being photographed.
While it is often true that the background may dominate the subject, this need not necessarily be so. In fact, the details that convey the message from the surroundings can often be quite small and still be significant. It can be used as a way to tell a story.
Mood board
1st Place Award in the “Environmental Portrait” category (Fall 2021). Photo by João Coelho (Portugal).A portrait of a young boy with his father watching on in front of their store in Kolkata, India.
All these images are very unique and tell very different stories. Some portray sadness while others are more lively and happy. Some images are linked to there workplace and others are to do with there current situation. They are some similarities (topology’s are similar photos) like how they all have there subject in the centre, most look into the camera, and they all have lots of contrast.
The bottom right has the basketball net as the main focus of the image. However, this does not exclude the person from the image, its almost used as a way to lead the eyes to the neutral face of the guy.
The top left is quite different as the main focus is clearly the guy sitting there seriously. It looks very planned out allowing cool details in the background to happen like the sparks.
“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.”
Environmental portraits are normally people in their working environments or environments that they are associated with, like their homes.
Mind Map
Mood Board
Pablo Picasso, Cannes, France, 1956 in Cannes, France
These images can reveal somebodies life, like where they work, or what their home is like, or what they do at home. These portraits can be used to have an insight on another’s life, or to have an insight on a profession. These portraits can also be called historical, as they may show jobs, which are no longer professions, or show how homes used to look and what people would do in their homes. The images also shows people not in the present. These environmental portraits help feel a connection between the photographer and the person getting their picture taken, unlike how it would be on a phone.
An environmental portrait is a photograph that captures the person surrounded by their usual environment that relates to them, for instance their workplace or home. The purpose of an environmental portrait is to show a persons life or story in the photos and the background or objects used to show their life in them. They are formal photos where the person in them is making eye-contact with the camera.
Still life is a painting/drawing of a varied amount of objects, typically including fruit, flowers and objects contrasting these in texture such as bowls and glassware.
Artists mostly associated with still life are Paul Cézanne, Henry Matisse and Georges Braque.
Still life comes from the Dutch word stilleven, created in the 17th century when paintings of objects enjoyed immense popularity throughout Europe.
The effect of this image makes me feel uncomforted because it is dark, looks cold, gloomy, rough, creates a male stereotype look and how the walls haven’t been cleaned shows unhygienic which also leads to uncomforting. He also has no emotion in his face which makes us feel like he is stopping us from entering.
Visual
Their is a dark, abandoned look to the photograph by having the bottom of the photo really dark an the overall photo dark with the man staring straight at the camera in the middle and the only light source being the sunlight through the windows above. Everything in the background looks old, industrial, rusty, stained or has graffiti on.
Technical
The two pillars and the perspective help create symmetry on the photo because it keeps the man in the middle with equal objects on each side. The light is used from different side angles, (left and right of his body), with one coming in from behind showing us that he is the main subject in the photograph.
Conceptual
The portrait captured the essence of Krupp’s character, making him look like the embodiment of evil. He took this photo because he was Jewish and Krupp was a convicted Nazi war criminal. But eventually after many refuses, Newman agreed as a form of personal revenge. It then later became one of the most controversial and significant images of it’s time.
Contextual
Newman was very popular for using his skillful techniques such as natural light. His work was influenced by the work of the Cubists, including Picasso, influenced the way he structures a photograph. He is mostly important for pioneering and popularizing the environmental portrait.
balanced compostion, by the 2 pillars either side holding him in.
he is the point of focus and the further we go back the more detail we lose.
organised and structered.
light from above shine down with side lihgting which creates a gloomy effect.
in a train station you would want good lighting
triangular composition which is strong and harsh.
makes us center and focus on i’m and his expression.
similarity lighting to a church.
lots of visual detail up close.
Conceptual-
Jewish photographer Arnold Newman was commissioned by Newsweek to take a portrait of Alfred Krupp, a convicted Nazi war criminal. At first, Newman refused, but eventually, he decided to take the assignment as a form of personal revenge.
Upon seeing the portrait, Krupp was furious. Nevertheless, the image was published and became one of Newman’s most famous works. The portrait served as a powerful reminder of the atrocities committed during World War II and the individuals who were responsible for them.
Alfred Krupp designed and developed new machines, invented the spoon roll for making spoons and forks, and manufactured rolling mills for use in government mints.
Contextual-
1963
Alfried Krupp, the son of Gustav Krupp, was born in Essen, Germany, on 13th August, 1907. After studying engineering in Munich and Berlin he joined his father’s company, Friedrich Krupp AG, that by the First World War was Germany’s largest armaments company.
Krupp and his father were initially hostile to the Nazi Party. However, in 1930 they were persuaded by Hjalmar Schacht that Adolf Hitler would destroy the trade unions and the political left in Germany. Schacht also pointed out that a Hitler government would considerably increase expenditure on armaments. In 1933 Krupp joined the Schutzstaffel (SS).
As a result of the terms of the Versailles Treaty the Krupp family had been forced to become producers of agricultural machinery after the First World War. However, in 1933, Krupp factories began producing tanks in what was officially part of the Agricultural Tractor Scheme. They also built submarines in Holland and new weapons were developed and tested in Sweden.
During the Second World War Krupp ensured that a continuous supply of his firm’s tanks, munitions and armaments reached the German Army. He was also responsible for moving factories from occupied countries back to Germany where they were rebuilt by the Krupp company.
Krupp also built factories in German occupied countries and used the labour of over 100,000 inmates of concentration camps. This included a fuse factory inside Auschwitz. Inmates were also moved to Silesia to build a howitzer factory. It is estimated that around 70,000 of those working for Krupp died as a result of the methods employed by the guards of the camps.
In 1943 Adolf Hitler appointed Krupp as Minister of the War Economy. Later that year the SS gave him permission to employ 45,000 Russian civilians as forced labour in his steel factories as well as 120,000 prisoners of war in his coalmines.
Arrested by the Canadian Army in 1945 Alfred Krupp was tried as a war criminal at Nuremberg. He was accused of plundering occupied territories and being responsible for the barbaric treatment of prisoners of war and concentration camp inmates. Documents showed that Krupp initiated the request for slave labour and signed detailed contracts with the SS, giving them responsibility for inflicting punishment on the workers.
Krupp was eventually found guilty of being a major war criminal and sentenced to twelve years in prison and had all his wealth and property confiscated. Convicted and imprisoned with him were nine members of the Friedrich Krupp AG board of directors. However, Gustav Krupp, the former head of the company, was considered too old to stand trial and was released from custody
Visual – The subject in the photo is a man who is the main focus. He is staring into the camera which makes the viewer feel intimidated. He is also wearing a black t shirt, he is tanned and he looks fairly old. This man is surrounded by a factory which looks like a train factory and I have inferred this because I can see there is a half made train and lots of different broken parts. Technical -There is a line of symmetry down the middle. There is also a slight blur as the further we look in the picture which makes the subject the main focus of the photo. The lighting is also placed art the front on each side of the man in the middle which makes the middle of the mans face fairly dark and makes the rest of the photo lit up by the lighting that is pointed towards it. Conceptual – Who cares that a picture is worth a thousand words when two can be worth a career change. Take the time a young Arnold Newman stumbled across a book of Theodore Roosevelt photos and two of them stuck out. “On the cover shot, which was supposed to represent him, he looked like an overstuffed walrus,” said Mr. Newman in a 1994 interview with The Boston Globe. “Inside there was a picture of him with his foot on a rhino, growling like mad. I thought, ‘My God, that is Teddy Roosevelt!’” Mr. Newman went on to photograph Eleanor Roosevelt, Pablo Picasso, Frank Lloyd Wright, Golda Meir, Andy Warhol, Marilyn Monroe, Salvador Dalí, and the former president Bill Clinton: decidedly on his own terms. There would be no overstuffed costume fittings or stark studios. Mr. Newman’s portraits were defined by his sitter’s environments, which led him to be known as the “father of the environmental portrait.” Contextual – In 1963 Arnold Newman took this picture of Alfred Krupp. Newman was Jewish and Krupp was a Nazi which made this photograph extremely unusual. Krupp admired Newman’s work and wanted Newman to take a photo of him, however when Newman told Krupp to lean forward, he put crossed his fingers and put his hands under his chin for his face to lean on which was his natural response when Newman told him what to do. Newman quickly took the photograph of Krupp like this and he hated it. Newman chose to keep this photograph as it showed Krupp’s true self as he looked extremely eerie and dark when he glared into the camera so harshly. This was Newman’s way of revenge as Krupp had disrespected his community in ways that can not be described.
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.
Sander’s work.
Schmeck’s 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.
Arnold Newman was born on march 3 1918 in New York City. He attended school in Atlanta and Miami beach Florida. Arnold Newman’s photography looks at people in there working place or in a location that has meaning to them and is relatable to them, his work is mainly Environmental Portraits of artists and politicians, most of his photos are in black and white and his photos are quite formal but also very raw and true to life as he captures them in specific moments like when they are at work or doing a hobby they are interested in. The models he is taking pictures of are sometimes posing for the camera than having a picture taken of them when they are working in there environment, which makes the pictures formal.
Arnold Newman also took a picture of Alfred Krupp and took a picture of him when the light was just perfect on his face and made him loo like the malicious man that he was, in the background there was the train station where he had all the supplies for the Nazi war and showcased that he did horrible things in the war and worked people to death he used concentration camp prisoners as labour workers, and then published the photo that krupp specifically said o delete making him known as a horrible man to the rest of the world.
