The client will enjoy seeing choices when you get hired to shoot an environmental portrait. Having options is even more important for designers.

Some of the variations you give to the client are only you moving to the left or right to compose the photo from a slightly different angle.

For this environmental portrait, I want to show the subject works at Chick-fil-A corporate headquarters in Atlanta, GA. So I am using this logo to help establish his employer.

When using a wide-angle lens like the Nikon 14-24mm ƒ/2.8 lens, you can do portraits with the lens, but you want to keep the face closer to the center than to the edges. Here you can see the hands a slightly distorted when they are on the photo’s edges.

What I like the most about the wide-angle lens is it brings the audience into the scene and gives you a more intimate look.

This photo was taken with the Nikon 85mm ƒ/1.4 lens. In this photo, I am shooting at ƒ/1.4 aperture. Now while it pops the subject out from the background, I am starting to lose the logo, which helps to establish the workplace.

I liked the effect of popping the subject out from the background, but I wouldn’t say I wanted the logo to be so blurred. I then closed the aperture down slightly to ƒ/2.8. Again, I like this the best of these two options.

Before you shoot–TEST.

Your subject will most likely not have the time for you to take all day running around trying different locations. The best thing to do is have an assistant or ask for a volunteer to stand in for your test shots. Work out your lighting with them. Find all the locations before the subject shows up.

I had an assistant stand in for the subject, and we worked on locations together. I would shoot and show the assistant and ask for his feedback. Sometimes you miss something, and having another set of eyes will help you catch any distractions.

Here are some of the test shots I did about an hour before the subject met me.

Arabica coffee is grown at high altitudes under shade, as you can see with this plant in Mexico.

A few blogs earlier, I discussed the importance of picking a good subject. Here is a link to that blog. Once you have your subject, construct an outline of how you would tell the story. Here are some photos from my last coverage of Mexico’s coffee farmers’ cooperative. I am going back to do more stories on them in November. 

As the coffee growers brought in groups from churches and civic groups to see how their cooperative was doing, it helped them fund water filtration for their communities with the profits.

Take these categories if you need to as a starting point, and fill in each of the things you would shoot.

1. Opener: Sets the scene for the story
2. Decisive moment: The one moment that can by itself tell the story
3. Details: Besides being like visual candy to the report, help often with transitions–especially in multimedia packages
4. Sequences: give a little variety to a situation
5. High overall shot: Gives a good perspective on how the elements all fit together.
6. Closer: Besides the classic shot of the cowboy riding off into the sunset, there are other visual ways to help bring the story to a close
7. Portraits: These photos are great for introducing the characters of the story

Because I had a list of things that coffee farmers’ families benefited from when I saw this moment of the kids taking their projects to school, and the joy on this girl’s face let me know I could check this off the list.

These are from a story I wrote about coffee farmers in Mexico who formed a cooperative. Before the cooperative, they made so little money that many of them were crossing the border as illegal immigrants so they could work to earn enough to feed their families, which usually stayed behind. 

Part of the process of coffee is spreading it out on concrete slabs and letting it dry. No need to shoot this over and over; I had it.

I needed to tell two stories. First, about how the coffee the cooperative grows is the finest Arabica. I also needed to tell the story that after joining the joint, the lives of the farmers and their families improved. 

I am working on the story of the cooperative coffee farmers in Mexico when one night, we go and enjoy a meal with some of the coffee farmers’ wives. They have formed a cooperative and run a take-out restaurant. While the photo isn’t stellar, the concept of the joint moving beyond just coffee shows the power of creating a cooperative.

As you are there, one day, an incredible moment happens that you did not plan for and did not even know was happening. You make a portfolio shot even. You add this to the package. In the end, putting your total package together might cut, and it might not. You can go off script, but the writing helps you tell the story. You may even change the outline as you shoot. The system helps you start and navigate the story better than getting up in the morning, grabbing your camera, and just waiting for something to happen so you can capture it.

Here is a brief outline of what I had before shooting the story on the coffee cooperative.

1. Showing the coffee on the plant and being harvested
2. Removal of what is left of the fruit from the bean
3. Drying coffee on slabs of concrete
4. Roasting the coffee
5. Bagging the coffee and grinding the coffee
6. Coffee farmers working in each of those settings
7. Coffee farmers in their homes
8. The families and what they do (mainly to show before and after)
9. Show how dangerous crossing the border is for a person
   1. Showing them remembering all those who died crossing
   2. Showing putting water in the desert for crossers
   3. Maybe show some in the desert waiting to cross in the darkness
10. Show what happens when border patrol finds them

Without a list, you may spend 80% of your time just growing the coffee, but by having a list, you can divide your time and have a storyline that will come together.

Talking of bad photographers, I have often heard it said that one of their characteristics is that they look at their contacts in order to discover which is the best picture, whereas a good photographer examines each frame on a contact sheet and asks: why is this one not a good picture?

[Jay, Bill; Hurn, David (1997-10-01). On Being a Photographer]

I am reading the book On Being a Photographer. You can get the Kindle version through Amazon for $5.95.

The book is in its third edition; I cannot recommend this enough for young and seasoned photographers.

Here is a link for you to get the book.

The Atlanta Photojournalism Seminar had Jay Maisel down to speak one year. He had recently switched to digital and loved it. I remember we were talking, and he pulled out of his breast pocket a memory card case and said this was all he needed compared to all the instances of the film he used to have to take on jobs.

Then he talked about his shooting the day before around his place in New York City. He pulled up his camera and gave it to me to look through what was the raw take.

David Hurn’s experience and mine have been that bad photographers don’t want you to see their raw take, whereas the seasoned pro welcomes it.

Jay Maisel demonstrated it by just giving me his camera and letting me look through the images.

36 – exposure 35mm film contact sheet of mine from 1987

In the book, Hurn talks about the “Contact Sheet.” Well, for the most part, these are things of the past when we all shot film. For example, most editorial photographers would shoot 36 exposure rolls of film and then make a contact sheet after processing the film.

The “Contact Sheet” was our first time seeing the images. Of course, now you can look at the back of your camera and see individual photos, but ingesting your pictures into a browser like PhotoMechanic or Lightroom lets you see the entire take as a whole, which is where you learn more than any other place in photography.

There are a few things seasoned pros all have in common, no matter what we shoot.

Most will shoot a frame or two as notes to themselves. It is common to see a scoreboard during a sporting event, so I know when something happens in the game. The play-by-play notes that I have at the game that I can access after the event will help me match the frame up to the time clock. Also, it makes it easier to write a better caption.

It is also common for me to shoot a frame that is just personal notes for myself.

While shooting a subject, things will change to where you will see the photographer explore the topic. So while the audience will only see maybe one photo of a scene as the final selection, the photographer didn’t just walk up, see it and click.

Assuming photos are just one click is what most bad photographers and beginners think or do themselves. As a result, they fail to explore the subject.

If it is a static subject like the Lincoln Memorial, the photographer will walk around it looking for an angle that evokes the emotion they feel. Then, they may come back later and shoot it at night, as I did here many years ago.

As we look at all the images we took before making corrections, the seasoned pros will look consistent in exposure, sharp and good color. Then the pro will go from frame to frame, pondering what they could have done to improve the photo.

Should I have stepped to the left or right more? Should I have been closer or further back? What would it have looked like with a different lens?

When the subjects are moving, I look for a moment when everything is coming together to a peak moment. Enlarge the first photo at the top of the grid of images. Then look from frame to frame. Which picture is better than another photo, and why? Now, if you were there and knew what I was trying to capture because of the conversation, this would help guide you to pick the photo that best communicates.

What happens if I realized that the photo would have been better if I had done something small? A moment is what most seasoned pros will tell you. They are looking for the perfect print and realize there is so much they cannot control that they only get close.

If the subject is static, there is less room for not getting it perfect, but when the subject is moving and you are capturing life as it happens, you get close and rarely obtain the ideal image.

By studying the contact sheet or thumbnails in a group, we can know how to anticipate better rather than react the next time we encounter something similar.

The more you study the whole take and evaluate your work, the more you realize how vital planning will help you do a better job next time.

Another thing most seasoned pros do is, after reviewing their work, they put it away for a couple of days when possible.

Hopefully, you are starting to see that professional photographer isn’t shooting all the time. However, they are doing a lot of planning and evaluating their work, so the next time they shoot, the odds are more in their favor.