Environmental portraits are images where the subject is shown in their natural environments, like their home, workplace, or doing their daily activities. They can reveal the persons interests, passions, lifestyle and what they do for work.

Mood Board

Artist Research- Arnold Newman

Arnold Newman was a great photographer who made a name for himself by shooting portraits of people in their own environments, like artists in their studios or musicians with their instruments. His photos told a story about who they were as people. He photographed icons like Picasso and JFK, and his style have a big impact on portraits today.

Examples of his images

Photo Analysis

Visual:

The man is in the centre of the image, he is leaning towards the camera with his chin resting on his clasped hands. He is the main focal point due to his positioning in the photo and the contrast between him and the dull, eerie background. His eye contact is piercing and his smug, confident appearance suggests he is in charge of the train station behind him. The concrete pillars and the dark and light areas, bring contrast to the image.

Technical:

The artificial looking lighting makes his stare appear dark and serious and his face look lifeless and sinister. The sharply focused foreground against the softer background suggests a medium aperture as the background is still identifiable just not as focused. it seems like the image was taken at a fast shutter speed due to the subjects level of focus. The eye level angle gives the impression he is attempting to intimidate us.

Contextual:

The subject in the image is Alfred Krupp who was a German industrialist who ran the Krupp empire, which was war factories that made weapons for the Nazi’s n WW2. He was convicted as a war criminal for his use of slave labour. His company forced around 100,000 people including children to work practically to death. The majority of boys and men who died were Jewish; this is why he is hated by Jewish people. He was later released, but his reputation and ruthless past was not forgotten. The photographer Arnold Newman was Jewish and didn’t want to take the image but he eventually agreed. When taking the image, Newman asked Krupp to lean forward and the light hit his face ideally, Newman said ‘He felt the hair stand up on the back of his neck.’ This image that he took became one of Newman’s most famous photos.

Concept:

For Newman this image was a bit of revenge for Krupp’s awful past. When Krupp saw the image he was said to have been very angry due to the way he had been captured which was in a sinister, threatening way. The population of the image brought up Krupp’s actions and allowed Newman to share his loathing for this man.

Photoshoot Mind Map:

Photoshoot Action Plan:

Contact Sheet:

Image Selection:

Editing (Using Lightroom)

Final Images:

Evaluation:

I chose these 3 final images as they each represent different environments and some of my images were taken in very similar environments. I like these 3 images together as they all share a slight warm tone, which allows them to work with eachother.