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

Layering

Your subjects are three-dimensional, and once you photograph them, they become two-dimensional. This can lead to boring photographs, because everything is on the same plane. For example, let’s say you are photographing an IT professional in his environment—the server room. By placing your subject right in front of or next to the servers, generally everything appears to be on the same plane. This sounds...well, boring.

My suggestion is to think in layers. Conceptualize the foreground, asking, “What can I include as a preview or lead-in to this subject?” Then determine if you can shoot through whatever it may be, putting the item on the edges of your frame and your subject in the middle. What you choose could be an agility jump ring or ...