While a portrait of a smiling person leaning on a tree might be completely perfect for some situations, usually an environmental portrait requires a bit more forethought and creativity to be impactful and memorable. Fortunately, the process of creating a great environmental portrait is really fun, and it doesn’t have to be technically challenging!

In this workshop, we go on location to a variety of interesting places around Santa Fe. We work with models and go through the planning process to create a unique and interesting portrait of them based on their personalities and creative needs. We also use a mix of natural light, existing light, or supplemental lighting to shape the subject, scene, and create a mood that’s perfect for the story. The focus is on using portable speedlights, or strobes, when necessary, to keep our lighting kit simple and easy to travel with.

In this workshop we cover:

• Simple, beautiful lighting techniques for perfect portraits.
• Working with the client to determine their true needs or story.
• Pre-planning to include locations, props, clothing, and people that support a successful shoot.
• Choosing locations and how to access places you hadn’t thought possible.
• Posing techniques for men and women that flatter them and look natural, or tell a story.
• Camera and lighting settings to translate the image in your head to the image on your camera.

During classroom sessions, we invite group collaboration to brainstorm ideas and create a team shoot. Participants are each able to photograph with the instructor on the group projects, as well as have an individual project to create and photograph on their own.

A portfolio review is provided at the beginning of class, and feedback on the images taken during the week is given daily to help students learn and improve their concept and capture.