I love environmental portraits, and sessions of this kind have always produced some of my strongest images.
Environmental portraiture places its subject in a context. We see a background that shows or suggests, more or less clearly, the setting in which the image was made. It can show the person in their place of work – a political operator outside the European Parliament, or a business owner in his factory, for example.
Sometimes, I choose a background more for aesthetic reasons than for any specific link to the person in the picture. The images above both use the perspective of the backgrouind to draw the eye to the subject’s face.
Other times, the face can be presented without distraction against a background completely blurred out in photographic ‘bokeh’, with shapes and colours vaguely suggestive of a natural or built environment.
Professional portraits to be used on a corporate website or on LinkedIn can also be shot in an environmental setting – I would argue that these stand out even more easily from typical ‘passport’ photos. Some clients specifically request environmental portraits, but when people ask for a studio session I usually mention the environmental option, and I don’t think anyone who has chosen this approach has been disappointed with the results.