environmental portraits

I introduced Kristin on these pages a few days ago. She asked me to take a picture of her to give to her parents for Christmas. I wanted to share the results of that shoot.

We agreed that we wanted to do a shot of her with some scenery in the background to give it context of being in Atlanta. We went to Centennial Olympic Park because I thought there would be a lot of locations that we could make a nice portrait. The weather was cooperative but it became much cloudier as we went along making getting good lighting a bit more difficult. I would have preferred to have some additional lighting with me but I did not.

We found a spot in the grass that had CNN in the background along with some wonderfully colored trees and we thought this would be a nice environmental location. This is not my favorite shot of the day, but I think it does demonstrate how a good environment can make a portrait much more interesting.

Environmental portraits are a personal favorite of mine for this reason. Having a tight shot with nice light or colors as a background is good but placing a subject in a lively environment that adds to the story is personally more rewarding. I do find it much more challenging as well.