While not my most often practiced form of photography, portraits of people hold a special challenge in terms of seeing a person, understanding the environment in which they appear, and working to create a representation that is visually satisfying to the viewer. Often the subject is the most important viewer. For commercial assignments it is often an art director who decides what works and what doesn’t.
The photographs below represent a cross-section of personal and professional work I’ve created.
Click on an image to see a larger version.
Amazing work, Steve. Environmental portraits were always my favorite assignments for the lighting and composition opportunities.
Thank you Paul for your kind words. Environmental portraits were common assignments for me especially for magazine work and for undergraduate recruiting campaigns. I hadn’t looked at my page in a long time and remembered how often I got instructions from an art director to leave space for marketing messages. When digital photography came along I often had a laptop tethered to the camera so the art director could see the images in real time and decide if I was making what was envisioned. Very different from the days shooting Kodachrome and Ektachrome!