2.4. Environmental Portraiture

An environmental portrait is a portrait created in an environment that is significant to the subject Typically, this is the subject's home or work environment—and not in the photography studio or on the street—although other environments are possible In any case, the key point is that the environment shown in the photo shows something important about the subject of the portrait In a good environmental portrait, the background not only adds information, it also brings an entirely new visual dimension to the photo.

It's often a great idea to photograph someone where they live, work, or play People are more comfortable and therefore more themselves in places they are used to.

When making these kinds of portraits, you should think expansively Take the idea of an environmental portrait beyond where it normally goes There's nothing that says that you have to limit the scope of your vision to a boring office or a neatly manicured living room.

It's always important to consider the background in your portraits, how the background relates to your subject, and how the inclusion of an environmental background enriches a given portrait Considering these questions gives rise to a true sense of what environmental portraiture is about—and will help you create portraits with more depth, even when only a small bit of environmental background is included.

The center of this composition is a woman reading in her home in provincial Cuba. Even though she is the subject of the portrait, she appears quite small in the photograph, which is unusual. Part of the point of showing this woman in the environment of her home is to show the sparseness of possessions, even in relatively well-off Cuban homes.

Two exposures combined in Photoshop, each exposure 20mm, f/22 and ISO 400, tripod mounted; exposed at 1/10 of a second and 1/25 of a second

I photographed these women in a high-risk pregnancy ward in Trinidad, Cuba. The physical environment of the ward—with no medical apparatus present—says as much about their situation as the way the women look.

27mm, 1/60 of a second at f/4.5 and ISO 400, hand held

This school teacher was the lonely custodian of a house for visiting teachers. The house was largely destroyed during the last hurricane that passed through Cuba and never fully rebuilt. His expression seemed to echo the emptiness of the facility he was responsible for.

I photographed him using a wide angle lens (12mm) to help emphasize the sparseness of hissurroundings.

12mm, 1/100 of a second at f/5.0 and ISO 160, hand held

There's no single person distinctly shown in this long exposure (4 seconds) taken inside a pool hall and bar. But the environment itself, even without a clearly delineated portrait, can say a great deal about the people in the bar—at least to the extent that the viewer probably has a preconceived notion about the kind of people you are likely to find in this environment.

16mm, 4 seconds at f/10 and ISO 200, tripod mounted