Environmental Portraits Class at PNCA

Travel Writer Rolf Potts

This February and March, I'll be teaching my popular course The Environmental Portrait at Pacific NW College of Art. I love shooting Portland location portraits, and enjoy teaching others how to do it well. Here's the class description:

The Environmental Portrait places a person in the context of their natural surroundings, and communicates more about them than is possible in a studio or simple headshot. Photographers use environmental portraiture to document figures in popular culture (Annie Liebowitz), make social commentary and documentary (Dorothea Lange), and more. In this class we will look at master location portrait photographers; review and critique each others work; and discuss how location portraits say much about the subject, as well as their social and political context in which they live. We will be working with models, available and artificial lighting, composition, camera and media choices, output and presentation. Both film and digital are welcome. The class will culminate with a portrait series as a final project.

You can read more, and sign up, at the Continuing Education portion of the PNCA website.