Do you want to tell a deeper story in your photos? As someone who shoots primarily landscapes, I sometimes get this voice in my head that my landscape feels empty. The answer could be to create an environmental portrait.

That’s exactly what I did when photographing the Kuala Lumpur skyline against the old wooden houses of the Kampung Baru neighborhood. Although I was able to show a contrast between the old and new through architecture, it was still lacking depth.

I needed a face, someone to create a connection and personalize the neighborhood. That’s when this young girl ran into my scene.

In the above video I share my creative process from idea to execution, as well as how my photo went from being a standard cityscape shot to an environmental portrait.

What is an Environmental Portrait?

An environmental portrait is simply a photo of someone in their natural surroundings. It’s a popular genre of photography that depicts someone inside or outside their home, at work, or the place around them. The environment is just as important, if not more than the subject itself.

How to Take Environmental Portraits

The following are some tips I’ve learned from some of the best environmental portrait photographers I know, plus one tip from me.

Tip 1: Tell a Story

What are you trying to say with your photo? What is your theme: rich vs poor, hope, despair, preservation, change, unity?

You don’t always need to have a profound message. Maybe you just like something because it’s beautiful. Perfect. Then your theme is ‘the world is beautiful and this my subject’s place in it’ or vice versa.

Either way, having something to say has a greater effect on the impact of your image than any camera body, lens, or setting ever will.

If you need more help, here are my tips for finding your voice in photography.

For my Kampung Baru portrait, my theme was old vs new. My original concept was to just focus on the architecture. I didn’t plan for the girl to be part of the photo. But once I saw her, I improvised a new shot.

She added another layer to the story. Will the neighborhood still be around when she is older? Will her generation be able to preserve their ethnic Malay lifestyle? Or will developers win out and replace the traditional houses with concrete towers?

More importantly, her presence give the location a more personal feel. It’s not just a city. It’s someone’s home.

Tip 2: Follow The Golden Rule

When photographing strangers it can be easy to offend. Photographer Matt Brandon says, “Remember, you are photographing people, not tourist attractions. Be polite and curious.”

In other words, if you wouldn’t want someone taking a picture of you in your back yard, then don’t take one of them.

Having said that, Matt also advises that 70% of taking great environmental portraits is having the guts to approach strangers.

Tip 3: Props & Poses Are Your Friend

Don’t be afraid to manipulate your scene. Environmental portraits don’t have to be documentary photographs.

 

As long as you aren’t a photojournalist trying to accurately portray reality, it’s fine to alter your scene and even influence it with props or poses.

In fact, the great environmental portrait photographer Arnold Newman quipped, “Photography is 1% talent and 99% moving furniture.”

If you look at photographer Jimmy Nelson’s portraits of the world’s disappearing tribes, it seems that the people he photographs are stuck in the past.

The truth is that their traditional dress is a prop. Many don’t wear it every day. He even mentioned during a workshop of his which I attended, that just behind him out of the view of the camera, there are often locals wearing Levis and talking on cell phones.

That’s fine though for him though. He doesn’t claim to be a documentarian or ethnologist. Rather he is creating an environmental portrait that showcases the beauty of a culture and its people in a dignified manner, one that builds cultural awareness in a positive light.

Tip 4: Conceptualize Your Environment

Rather than taking what your environment gives you and adding props and poses, manifest your environmental portrait from concept to creation.

I met up with one of my favorite conceptual photographers, Benjamin Von Wong, in Cambodia to support him on a project. It was inspiring to see first hand how Ben “built” his environment around a concept: Worship Your Clothes.

The campaign was for Fashion Revolution, a group whose motto is to change the way our clothes are sourced, produced and consumed, so that our clothing is made in a safe, clean and fair way.

We built a set inside an abandoned clothing factory in Phnom Penh. The environment, a warehouse filled with thousands of bags of discarded clothes, was as much a part of the story as the people and objects in the scene.

Not only did Ben use the environment as his backdrop, we repurposed the elements of the scene to create something all-together new that amplified the message.

If you want to learn more about Von Wong’s photography, here are Ben’s tips on How to Go Viral.

Tip 5: Use a Wide Angle Lens

When you think of a good portrait lens, what comes to mind – a 50mm, 85mm, 135mm f/1.8? Photographer Dylan Goldby says you can throw the term “portrait lens” out the window.  You can use any lens to make a great portrait.

 

In fact, in this video Dylan shows you how and why to use a wide angle lens for portraiture.

He adds a word of caution though when using one: “Wide angle lenses begin to render things closer to the camera much bigger than things further away. This can be used to give more visual weight to your subject, but could also introduce unwanted distortions. It can be a subtle dance to find the best balance of subject distance and distortion.”

Get Creative With Environmental Portraits

Back in 1979, my family lived on Jeju Island in South Korea. My dad took a bunch of photographs while we were there. Decades later I returned to where we lived and photographed the same things he did.

One of the photos was of him standing in front of a waterfall on the island. I went back, found the spot where he took the shot, and then made a self-portrait posing as he did.

So the next time you take a portrait, think twice before you set your aperture to blur out the background. Or if you’re a landscape purist who never includes people in the scene, try adding someone for a change.

Otherwise, it might be your greatest shot you never took.

Do you have an environmental portrait you’d like to share? Post it in the comments below!