Commercial Photographic Styles: Environmental Portraiture Research Assignment

Environmental Portraiture Discussion
Which photographers did you find that created dynamic subject/background combinations? Dan Winters has really good examples of environmental portraiture but some pictures (like the ones I put as ''bad examples'') are not. An example of good portrait is the picture of Arnold Schwarzenegger because it tells us exactly what kind of person he is and his position. August Sanders also did great portraits with everything in the picture adding to the subject. The picture of the 2 kids holding hands clearly inform the views that they are rich kids. Their clothes and the house let us know that they are part of a rich family. I really like the picture of Dennis Welsh of the cranberry field man. I like the colors, the expression of the man and the sky.We feel that the man like what he does and the warm colors of the picture really help to make us feel this way.

Which ones do not: the background is just an elaborate prop, the background is too forced or it looks fake due to photoshop manipulation? Like I said earlier, Dan Winters has really nice environmental portraits but I find that some portraits don't fit with the backgrounds. For instance, the picture of the Queen in the field is really good, but I find that the location chosen doesn't fit with what we know about royalty. The Queen has a gorgeous clean dress, and she is in a field associated with work, and dirt. The pictures of Rineke Dijkstra of the girl in bathing suit doesn't tell us much about the girl. We know that she is a swimmer just by looking at what she is wearing but the picture is taken from a serie of people in bathing suit in front of the ocean which doesn't tell us more on everyone apart from the swimming part.

Bad Examples of Environmental Portraiture