Environmental Portraiture: Tell Your Subject’s Story and Create Dynamic Portraits with One Bag of Gear

Framing

Doorways, windows, art, and hallways can all serve as effective framing elements to surround your subject. By incorporating these architectural features into your photographs, you can draw the viewer’s eye to the subject. Framing isolates the person from the rest of the photo and naturally draws attention to whatever is in the frame, so the subject becomes the point of interest.

Centering the subject in the frame (a doorway or the frame of a piece of art) is creating an intentional point of interest. Placing your subject a little off center within that frame is an option, keeping in mind the rule of thirds. The rule of thirds is a compositional technique that involves separating an image into three areas using two equally spaced horizontal ...