alittlenews

One of the things I love about my job is the chance to shoot portraits of so many different people in so many different situations.  The environmental portrait is very enjoyable and the only thing I don’t like about shooting portraits is when I am forced to shoot in a studio.  I absolutely hate the studio.  Hate it I say.  I am not sure where my anti-studio thing began but it is simply not for me.

Don’t misunderstand.  I know that many people who specialize in the portrait love the starkness and visual simplicity of having nothing but the subject in a photo.  They have the ability to distill the essence of the individual with nothing more than a blank backdrop, the camera and whatever light they are going to use.  I think of the famous portrait of Winston Churchill when I think of this style of portraiture.  It is fabulous but it is not for me.

I love being on location.  I love the challenge of either working with the existing light or overcoming it.  I love finding something of the person in his or her environment.  I don’t know when this started because I remember distinctly how I used to disdain any situation that was contrived or set up in any way.  One day the switch just flipped and I began finding a pleasurable challenge in the environmental portrait.

This series of portraits literally runs the gamut for me.  There are one light portraits, two light portraits, three light portraits and even a four light portrait.  That, of course, is the lights I have added because, in most cases, daylight is also involved.  I probably should make you deconstruct each photo and tell me the number of lights in each portrait.  That might be fun.  Besides, what kind of teacher would I be if I never gave a test.  So, ahem, class, class, please take out your test booklets and match the number of lights to each portrait and kindly post your answers in the comments section.  There will be no prize awarded for this only the knowledge gained from your experience.  If you really want to get creative you can tell me where the lights are positioned.  Now there is a tester!

Just on a personal note here, I really enjoyed photographing the people in these pictures.  The captions will tell you something of their stories and if you are really interested you can go to decaturdaily.com and look up each person for the story associated with the photo.  Of course, some of them will be under our subscription lock so that won’t work for all of them.  The combo portrait of the Special Olympians is very special to me.  One of the people, Lucas Compton, was one of my subjects in The Upside of Down.  He is a very special young man and I absolutely love being around him.

I could really go on and on about these fine people.  I never cease to be amazed how willing people are to share their lives and their stories with me.  It is a true privilege and pleasure.

Photos copyright Gary Cosby Jr., The Decatur Daily.  The opinions expressed in this blog are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.