Fantastic Environmental Portraits: How To Master People Pics
An environmental portrait of a man sitting by a fire in Kolkata.
Photojournalists known that a well sequenced series of people pics is a great way to tell a more comprehensive story. And the most compelling photo from that series will be the environmental portrait.
One of the best people pics is the environmental portrait. Essential to a photo essay, it can tell a story in a single image. The key to creating an environmental portrait is to place the subject in an environment to which they belong and for the photo to explore something of their essential nature.
Central to this endeavor is the art of composition and, throughout this post, I’II outline how I go about constructing my images.
Table of Contents:
I photographed this man, sitting by a fire, while on a self motivated photo walk exploring the backstreets of Kolkata.
Under normal circumstances, I’d ensure the subject is positioned nice and close to the camera so as to emphasize their importance in the image.
However, as the fire was so important to the story I wanted to tell, I positioned myself in such a way to, more or less, equally balance the importance of the fire and the man within the composition.
Street photography provides a wealth of fascinating opportunities for the travel photographer and it’s always a highlight for me to meet and photograph local folk going about their daily life.
It’s important to note that environmental portraits are special and require a somewhat unique approach. Strictly speaking, they’re not candid portraits. Nonetheless, they are a form of people photography made famous by photojournalists, documentary and street photographers.
Let me share with you the recipe I follow to make beautiful, life affirming environmental portraits that explore the Human Condition.
The Secret to Fantastic Environmental Portraits
To be a great photographer you need to stay in control of the process while making photos. And I don’t just mean understanding how to use your camera.
When creating environmental portraiture I see the photographer’s role to be as much that of a facilitator as an artist.
Your outcome should be guided by a desire to record the subject in a particularly expressive or decisive moment. That's really what great people pics are all about.
Of course, as is the case in traditional portraiture, the photographer may have to provide significant direction to the subject to achieve the desired expression, pose or gesture.
Photography is created in the moment and even the most introverted individual has the capacity to create beautiful environmental portraits.
But to do so they have to step out of the shadows and take control, in a way that encourages cooperation from the person being photographed.
The key is to be yourself and approach strangers in a direct, yet non-threatening manner. Be polite, introduce yourself and explain, in plain and simple language, the following key points:
Who you are?
Why you’d like to photograph them?
What the image is for and how will it be used in the future?
Actually, I wrote a very easy to read post addressing How to Photograph Strangers which expands nicely on this topic.
Environmental portrait of a working man at the Botanical Gardens in Kolkata.
Locations for Environmental Portraits
Location is essential to creating great environmental portraits. Needless to say it’s important to select a location in which the subject appears to belong. Doing so will greatly enhance your chances of making a really great people pic.
Some examples of locations that are well suited to environmental portraits include the following:
Home
Work
Place of worship
Recreational hangout
Sporting location
Site where hobby takes place or can be referred to
For example, I met this working man at his place of work in the Botanical Gardens in Kolkata, India.
The area where the photo was made looks very much like a clearing in the jungle, when in fact the gardens are located on the edge of one of the world’s largest cities.
But this is not England, and there are parts of these gardens that do evoke a sense of the wild.
The setting was wonderful and all I needed to do was to introduce myself and ask to make a picture.
The whole process was conducted within a few seconds and, after thanking this kind and humble soul, I was ready to move on.
But I knew I’d made a powerful and emotive people photo. Actually, it’s one of my favorite people pics.
His position within the frame is ideal as it’s helped to create a balance between the subject and the background within the composition.
I think you’ll agree that he does seem to belong within this environment.
However, the use of a shallow depth of field does place extra importance onto the subject by de-emphasizing the background. And that’s important, as it’s still, primarily, a portrait.
It’s good to remember that, in environmental portraits, the location becomes an integral part of the final photograph. Consider this fact carefully in your composition and work hard to relate the subject to their surroundings, while ensuring the subject remains the key point of interest in the image.
A lovely environmental portrait of a boy in his father's print workshop.
Incorporating Props Into An Environmental Portrait
Another way to help make the subject look and feel at home in their surroundings is to include one or more props in the image.
A butcher could be wearing their (once) white apron and be pictured holding a butcher’s knife.
A painter might be depicted wearing a smock and holding a brush and paint palette.
I was so happy to meet this young boy and his father while exploring the backstreets of Kolkata. The father was a printer and the photo of his son was made in his factory, which was compact in the extreme.
I’m confident that composition is central to the success of this image. It’s based around the notion of circles arranged into a triangular shape.
Actually this is a practice that I became aware of as a child, when staring at album covers while listening to music.
During my formal photography education I spent a morning in the library and discovered this technique, very much, present in art as far back as Da Vinci’s painting of the Last Supper.
That was enough for me and I abandoned my research at lunch time. I now know this technique of arranging circles into a triangle has existed in art for many, many centuries prior to the Renaissance.
Why does it work so well? Because it produces a cohesive and harmonious result.
I also feel the shallow depth of field I adopted was helpful as it’s reduced the chance of a fairly cluttered background becoming a distraction.
Finally, the black and white treatment helps as it introduces the notion of nostalgia to the image. I think that treatment is completely appropriate to the scene in question and the beautifully restrained mood that’s explored in this picture.
Environmental portrait with the subject photographed off centre shows a colorful background.
Environmental Portrait: Subject Placement Within The Frame
I can’t understate how important it is that the subject in an environmental portrait seems to belong within the surroundings (i.e., environment) in which they are depicted.
But to see the surroundings we often need to move our subject off centre, towards the edge of the frame, so that they don’t cover up or block the background.
This approach will allow the viewer’s attention to, very briefly, scan the surroundings prior to being drawn back to the primary subject in your people pic.
That’s particularly true if the subject’s eyes are illuminated and/or they’re separated from their surroundings through the use of a shallow depth of field (DOF).
To achieve the ideal composition, simply move in close with a wide-angle focal length lens on you camera.
As you can see the child was quite apprehensive about the whole process. I certainly didn’t want to upset him, so I went about making the photo as quickly as I could.
After asking for permission from the child’s mother, I very carefully approached the child and positioned myself in such a way to produce an interesting composition.
That involved framing the scene to emphasize the following elements of composition.
The balance between the textured yellow and smoother green columns.
The repetition of those same yellow and green background elements.
The gentle sense of movement as your eyes, following the diagonal angle of the background, move from right to left across the frame.
Horizontal orientation usually best showcases the environment in an environmental portrait.
Camera Orientation For An Environmental Portrait
Both vertical and horizontal framing can be used to construct an environmental portrait.
However, usually horizontal (i.e., landscape) framing provides the best option as it allows for the inclusion of more environment within the frame.
However, on occasions, vertical framing may be better suited to the environment in question.
As I write I’m remembering one or two environmental portraits I’ve made of religious minister’s, both inside and outside churches with very high steeples. Both those images worked well as horizontal or landscape compositions.
Environmental portrait of a shopkeeper in his tiny, colorful shop in Kolkata.
Lens Choice For An Environmental Portrait
While important, your course of lens focal length needs to be paired with great technique to make the best possible use of that particular lens.
The best way to make an environmental portrait is to stand close enough so that the person in question is clearly identifiable while, at the same time, ensure you’re able to include a sufficient amount of their environment to better tell the story.
Under normal circumstances, the closer you get to the subject the more dominant they’ll become in the composition.
Be aware though, that the closer to the subject you get the more background will be excluded from your composition.
Use of a mild wide-angle (e.g., effective 35 mm focal length) lens enables the photographer to move up close and engage with the subject while retaining much of their surroundings within the frame.
The wider angle of view associated with that focal length will include more of the surroundings (i.e., above, below, left and right) than would be the case with normal or telephoto focal length lenses.
Wide-angle lens focal lengths also provide a more three dimensional feeling of space and depth in a photo. They do this by helping to visually separating the scene into distinctive areas of foreground, mid ground and background.
A mild wide-angle focal length lens possesses a quite special property when it comes to photographing the average face.
When employed close to your subject, it acts to draw the face in a relatively dramatic manner, while providing a sense of greater separation between the subject and the background.
Telephoto focal lengths, on the other hand, tend to compress the sense of visual space between the subject and the background.
The slightly more dramatic perspective associated with a mild wide-angle lens can produce a more visually arresting image.
That’s not to say you can’t make even more visually dynamic environmental portraits with focal lengths wider than 35 mm.
You certainly can, but the success of that kind of people pic will be dependent, at least in part, on your ability to achieve the following:
Producing a pleasing likeness of your subject.
Controlling perspective within the composition and how much of the surroundings are included in the frame.
If you’re looking to produce an even more dramatic image try a lens with an effective focal length of 24 mm or wider. It can be a lot of fun and, if used correctly, really dramatic people pics can be achieved.
Alternatively, try photographing from an extreme (e.g., worms eye or birds eye) angle of view.
Environmental portrait of a boy with his father in Kolkata, India.
Focal Point In An Environmental Portrait
With attention now placed on both the subject and their surroundings, it’s important to ensure that the subject’s face remains the primary focal point (i.e., point of interest) within the image.
It’s good to remember that the objective is to make a particular type of portrait, one that places the subject in surroundings that describe something of who they are or what it is they do.
But it’s still a portrait. So, to ensure your subject remains the primary focal point within the image, make sure they’re properly illuminated and positioned close to the camera’s lens.
Paying attention to the camera-to-subject distance is particularly important when a wide-angle lens is used to make an environmental portrait.
That’s because, by fitting more content into the frame, a wide-angle lens tends to provide the impression that mid ground and background elements are smaller and further away than is actually the case.
As you can see, I walked in very close when photographing this young boy, with his father standing in the background, in Kolkata, India.
They were working at the father’s kiosk, selling snacks and basic groceries.
I asked for permission to make the image and the father volunteered his son to be the subject of my photo.
As you can see, the young lad didn’t look all that happy. I wondered if he’d just copped a rebuke from his father or if he had a melancholic disposition.
Actually, I’m a very empathetic and intuitive person, and I felt sorry for the young lad. His sadness bothered me.
I decided to make a beautiful image that also hinted at the underlying tension I perceived between father and son.
I believe the final result is very poignant and a great example of a black and white environmental portrait from the travel photography tradition.
And thank goodness I opted for a black and white rendering. The original color image was really highly saturated, which resulted in all those bags of chips in the background competing for attention with the young boys face.
Having distracting background elements, dragging attention away from the primary focal point of an environmental portrait, can be the death of the image.
Thankfully, a very shallow depth of field and a black and white rendering saved the day, and I’m very happy with the final result.
Depth Of Field In Environmental Portraiture
Generally speaking you’ll want to blur the background in a portrait photo. You’ll achieve this through a shallow depth of field.
However, as the subjects surroundings are important to the story being told in environmental portraiture, you may choose to gently blur, rather than obliterate the background.
A fast lens (e.g., f/2.8) is always appealing and a fantastic addition to any photographer’s camera bag.
However, you’ll often want to retain a reasonable degree of information in the background in many of your environmental portraits. That’s because the background can provide important visual information that can help tell the story.
That might mean a more modest maximum aperture (e.g., f/4) may be sufficient for your needs.
In fact I employed a relatively modest aperture of f/4, and photographed quite close to the subject, to produce the environmental portrait of the young lad in front of his father’s kiosk in Kolkata.
It’s the relatively short camera-to-subject distance, in addition to the aperture of f/4, that’s really put the background so out of focus.
It’s interesting how we’re drawn to the sharpest part of an image, in this case the boy’s face, yet we can still make out important descriptive elements in his surroundings.
Our eyes dart over to those out-of-focus background areas, but just as quickly return to the boy’s eyes. That’s because, in search of recognizable information, our brain is always pulled towards sharpness.
An interactive environmental portrait of a yogi resting in Kolkata, India.
Interaction In Environmental Portraiture
As a general rule interaction between the subject and photographer and, as a consequence, between the subject and the viewer, is achieved through eye contact.
The eyes are considered as windows to the soul in a great portrait photograph.
You can see how important the eyes are in this interactive environmental portrait of a yogi, whom I photographed resting in a temple complex by the banks of the Hooghly River in Kolkata, India.
Photography is a communicative art and great photographs tell us as much about the photographer as they do about the subject.
This interaction between the photographer and the viewer provides a link to the opinions, views and motivations of the photographer.
I believe there’s three distinct, yet interrelated participants involved in any portrait photograph. And it’s the relationship between the subject, viewer (audience) and photographer that’s at the heart of our very best people pics.
The Environmental Portrait And The Customer
If you’re looking to sell the image to your subject or their mother then a mild, wide-angle focal length is usually the best option.
If, however, you’re producing images for a wider audience (e.g., photojournalism) than you might be better off employing an even wider focal length, up close, for a more dramatic look.
By selecting a mild, wide-angle focal length and moving up close to your subject, you’ll be able to tell the story in a more compelling manner.
You’ll do so by depicting your subject in an environment to which they seem to belong in a flattering, yet visually interesting way.
The environmental portrait has been with us for a long time. Many of Europe’s greatest painters created wonderful environment portraits of royalty, religious leaders and working class folk.
Today, newspaper photographers and wedding/portrait photographers frequently employ the environmental portrait as a way of telling a story within a single image.
Including the environmental portrait into your own photography will allow you to better tell the story, within a single picture, and enhance your future photographic opportunities.
I hope this practical guide on how to create beautiful, life affirming environmental portraits enhances your own creativity by helping you make truly great people pics.
The recipe I’ve provided works just as well when photographing friends, family and the interesting folk you’ll meet on your travels through life.
I really hope it helps. If you believe it does, please feel fee to share this post widely and wildly.
Conclusion: India, Environmental Portrait Heaven
The environmental portraits in this post are part of my updated India Photography Collection.
There are currently over 50 photos in the collection and more will be added over time. You’ll notice the collection includes portrait, landscape, architecture and religious subject matter.
India is a tough place to travel around. But it’s an incredibly vibrant country with opportunities for great photos around every corner.
And let’s not forget the deeper, more profound level of story telling you can now begin to explore through the environmental portraits you’ll make.
