- Environmental Portraiture -

In the final term of my first year, I've been learning about environmental portraiture.  Again, my tutor has set me a task to push me out of my comfort zone, one of her many skills that makes her such a brilliant teacher.  Looking at my pictures, it's obvious that I have a tendency to crop my images pretty tight to the subject.  This is something I have tried to rectify recently.  Also I've been learning the art of a flash gun, something I used to see as pretty tacky.  So here they are.  The final images for this brief which has pushed me to my limits.  The great thing about being pushed are the things I learn.  Anyway, enough chit chat...

A simple portrait.  Natural light with a reflector filling in the shadows on his face.

James with his books and cameras in his grandma's old rocking chair.  Just a few things in our home that make me think of him.

Flash on a tripod.  Had a few difficulties with light being bounced around our white living room.  It was easy enough to solve by placing a black reflector(?) in line with the flash to absorb the light.  I love the simplicity of this shot, even though it isn't framed in tight.  For this brief we had to make a magazine layout.  I used this as my front cover.

This isn't really an environmental shot, but it is part of the brief.  We learnt on this project to use a flash gun, a piece of equipment I have recently made friends with!  I am in love with this image.  I was able to get it to look exactly how I wanted, despite being inexperienced with the equipment.

This image is my favourite from this project, and probably one of my favourites from all my work.  At this point me and the flash gun were getting much better acquainted.  This image helped me to see the potential in myself that others see.