Wikipedia.org has this to say about an environmental portrait:

“An environmental portrait is a portrait executed in the subject’s usual environment, such as in their home or workplace, and typically illuminates the subject’s life and surroundings. The term is most frequently used of a genre of photography.

“By photographing a person in their natural surroundings, it is thought that you will be able to better illuminate their character, and therefore portray the essence of their personality, rather than merely a likeness of their physical features. It is also thought that by photographing a person in their natural surroundings, the subject will be more at ease, and so be more conducive to expressing themselves, as opposed to in a studio, which can be a rather intimidating and artificial experience.”

The Background in Environmental Portraits

“The surroundings or background is a key element in environmental portraiture, and is used to convey further information about the person being photographed.

“Where it is common, in studio portraiture and even in location candid photography, to shoot using a shallow depth of field, thereby throwing the background out of focus, in environmental portraiture the background is an integral part of the image. Indeed, smaller apertures and more depth of field is commonly used in this type of photography.”

Details in the surroundings

“While it is often true that the background may dominate the subject, this need not necessarily be so. In fact, the details that convey the message from the surroundings can often be quite small, and still be significant.The key seems to be in the symbolism expressed by various elements in the background, for instance, a baseball cap may not tell you much about your subject(unless he or she is a baseball player), but a chef’s hat gives you a lot more detail about who he is and what he does.”

A metaphor is an implicit comparison of one thing to something else: “my love is a red, red rose”. A simile, of course, is a kind of metaphor that makes the comparison explicit using “like” or “as”: “my love is as beautiful as a red, red rose.”

Thus writes Harold Davis in his article Myths, Metaphors, and Digital Photography. Unfortunately, Davis concentrates on the links between film and digital cameras and processing. I’m more interested in the subject and when or if photographers use metaphors to convey a story.

For example, in this photo shot by Howard Marsh, the metaphor could be love of dogs, sharing a moment (the Labs love it when I sit at their level or point of view), or the viewer might see nothing of the kind.

In expressive photography, we rely on visual symbols to represent abstract ideas. A symbol stands for something with a larger meaning. We may also call them metaphors. Some of the most famous photographs endure because of their symbolism”

Thus begins a tantalizing article in pbase.com entitled Using symbols and metaphors to express meaning. The writer accompanies each photographic example with text explaining his reaction to the metaphor — far better than I could here. But I’ll give it a go.

For those familiar with rutting moose in the fall, this photo might convey autumn, an end to a season, and, had I left the suburban sight of powerlines in the photo, wildlife accommodating to life in the ‘burbs of Alaska. Or, in this case, not man versus nature, but man and nature, and especially nature and people with cameras coexisting. The hedge can always be replaced, while the moose are necessary for the balance of diversity in nature. But that’s fodder for another post, perhaps.
(© Photo by Jan Timmons. Photo above by Howard Marsh)

The Black-capped Chickadee (Poecile atricapillus) have black caps, white cheeks, and black throats and are gray above with buff sides fading to white undersides. Males, females, and juveniles have the same plumage. These birds are permanent residents here, but sometimes move a little south within their range in winter. On cold winter nights, the chickadees reduce their body temperature by up to 10-12 °C to conserve energy. Their sound distinguishes them from the finches quite clearly, and those we feed appear toward end of day to dine on sunflower seeds and thistle.

The Red-breasted Nuthatch is a compact bird with rufous undersides and slate upperparts. It has long, strong toes and claws, and a long, solid bill. This nuthatch has a white chin, black eyeline, and white line above the eye-line, in addition to a narrow, dark cap at the top of the head. The cap is black in males. Females have gray caps and a slightly lighter rufous color on the undersides. The white markings on either side of the short tail can be seen in flight in both sexes.

When I stand close to the branches to watch them, I can almost hear them thinking:

There are no cats in the future,
There are no cats in the past,
There are only cats to worry about now.

A lesson for me–but not about cats, of course. I want to become more conscious of how thoughts and emotions get in the way of my ability to live in genuine peace and happiness–in the now.