Environmental Portraiture Photography

Abstract

Portrait photography offers an audience a visual representation of a person, and depending on how the subject if photographed the viewers can ascertain a number of different elements from the picture. While all portraiture photography can describe the subject, environmental photography achieves much more than a simple representation of a person's looks. Environmental portraiture captures a subject's personality, their characteristics, their hobbies, careers, or nature. Whether these environments work to showcase a person's background explicitly or to ensure they are comfortable in the place they are being photographed, the end result should be a picture in which the viewer can answer questions about who the subject is, but also be intrigued by the questions these environments bring up. It is the intentions of this study to look at the development of photography, the history of portraiture photography and the elements of this specific branch of portraiture and to use this research to capture strong images of environmental portraiture.