In order to be successful an environmental portrait should convey something about both the subject and his or her surroundings. While the background may contribute to an understanding of the subject's personality, or vice-versa, what's most important in this type of photography as opposed to landscape or straight-up portraiture, is that relationship between the space and the person. If the environmental portrait can be executed with proper light exposure and clever composition, well all the better.
I'll start with the bad to get it out of the way. All of these images are self-described "environmental portraits," even though for the majority the issue I have is that there isn't enough environment for them to technically qualify. And then of course there are the usual infractions of heavy-handed Photoshoppery and over-the-top props. In any case, these are best viewed on an empty stomach:
The ugly
...
As for excellent environmental portraits, I found myself drawn very strongly to the work of famous photographers like Lewis Hine, Mary Ellen Mark and Tina Barney. Each has a representative photo in my album. But I have to say that hands down my favorite environmental portraitist is a relatively unknown chap from my hometown of Detroit named MARK ALOR POWELL. (I know I've mentioned him before on my blog last year but I revisited his work in the context of this project and his portraits definitely deserve mentioning again...he's that good.)
His website and flickr are full to the brim with great stuff so the tricky part for me was narrowing it down to just a few amazing portraits.
What I find so successful about his style is that he captures real people, and there is very little pretense about the shot; that neither the subject nor the background have been tampered with and that you feel you are witnessing a real moment. In this way you get the sense that you really are getting acquainted with the subject of the portrait; who is often times a subject you wouldn't normally come across in your daily life. I love the fearlessness Powell seems to exhibit in approaching everyday people to take their photos, and not trying to assert a pose or a feeling to the photo, but just letting the innate personality of his subject take center stage. He allows the natural dignity that every person is imbued with to shine through, and I think it takes a rare photographer to put his or her subject so at ease that this phenomenon occurs time and again. It's probably easy to get lucky with one or two decent portraits but judging by how prolific Powell is, you know he's the real deal.
so without further ado, here are a few of my favorite environmental portraits:
the VERY good
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