Discover how to shoot and enhance a portrait that 'tells the story' of your subject at work or at play.
Words and images by James Paterson
Environmental portraits are photos of people in their everyday surroundings, whether at work, home, or play.
The idea is to include things that tell us something about the person, and the background becomes their 'backstory', so we need to show details and objects that help to explain who they are and what they do.
Of course, it helps if you've got an interesting subject and environment to shoot, and we went to the Bath Aqua Glass glassmaking workshop to photograph talented glassblower Will as he produced one of his beautiful and delicate creations.
We began the shoot by taking some candid shots while observing the glassblowing process.
SEE MORE: Candid portrait photography – how to use a macro lens to draw out character
Most of the work of shaping and blowing the glass was done on the bench, so this is the setup we chose for our portrait, with the glowing furnace in the background.
From this angle, the mixture of workshop lights and daylight presented a real challenge.
We used off-camera flash to pick out the subject and underexpose the background, resulting in an atmospheric portrait that captures something of the skill and craft of this fascinating process.
SEE MORE: 10 common portrait photography mistakes every photographer makes (and how to fix them)
How to tell a story with your portrait photography: steps 1-3
01 Shoot candids
When going into an unknown environment like this, begin by shooting a few candids. Glassblowing is a subject we knew very little about, so rather than trying to pose glassblower Will, it made sense to start out by observing him for a while, looking for interesting angles and details as he worked.
We set our DSLR to Aperture Priority mode (Av), and because it was fairly dim we cranked our ISO up to 2000.
02 Look for the light
Look for good spots of light, such as next to a window or door, and if the light isn't right, add some of your own.
After shooting a few candids here we settled on a composition with Will on the bench and the furnace in the background, and from this angle the lighting was a challenge.
The background was illuminated by a big open door off to the left side, while Will was at the bench in the much darker foreground, so we set up an off-camera flash to light him.
SEE MORE: 6 simple lighting setups for shooting portraits at home (free cheat sheet)
03 Set up a wireless flash
We positioned our Nissin flashgun off to the right of the camera, and used our 70D's pop-up flash to trigger it.
Set the flashgun to wireless mode, Channel 1, then in the camera's Flash Control menu choose Built-in Flash Settings and set Wireless Func to the flashgun icon.
SEE MORE: Flash photography tips: external flash techniques anyone can understand
Choose Channel 1 and set Flash Mode to Manual Flash, then use the Output setting to adjust the power. You need a good line of sight, so make sure the sensor on the front of the flashgun is angled back towards you.
How to tell a story with your portrait photography: steps 1-3
How to tell a story with your portrait photography: steps 4-6
How to edit your environmental portrait: steps 1-4
How to edit your environmental portrait: steps 5-8
How to edit your environmental portrait: steps 9-12
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