Environmental Portraits

This is my long time friend Mark Wlodarcyk. Lately we have been getting into biking a lot and he has set up a sort of bike shop in his garage. I hung up a bunch of frames and handle bars from hooks on the ceiling and used a bike frame as a frame for his face. The garage was opened behind me, sending light to his face. What was great is that the garage was opened just enough so the light hit the upper part of his face to create good catch lights. 

This is a photo of my English teacher Kristopher Woofter in his office. The literary genre of the class is American Gothic. He is a great teacher with a lot of character. I wanted to portray his character by putting in the background the collage on his wall, and also getting his black nails which are always like this. Light was coming from a window to the right of him, creating short lighting. 

This is my self portrait. It was taken in my living room with one light up on top and one pointing at me for the fill. I play my guitar on this chair regularly, with my guitar case is this spot. It is my grandmothers chair that i always sat in at her house when i was young, so i love it dearly.

I really enjoyed shooting for this assignment!

This image by Arnold Newman is one of my favorite portraits.  The face is very dominant because of how bright it is in contrast to the background. I love how the hanging objects fall perfectly into place around the face and flutter up to the top of the image. Also, the man's face ( alexander calder ) is positioned pretty much a rule of thirds point.