What's An Environmental Portrait?

When you hear that a photographer offers or specializes in 'environmental portraits' you might understandably think of something like what you see below:


But that's not what an environmental portrait is! It really just means the portrait's done in a real location or with realistic surroundings like what you see here:

A 'studio portrait' on the other hand is more like what you used to get each year at school: a shot of you just sitting there in front of a simple background. There's nothing wrong with this sort of approach but environmental portraits provide an opportunity to capture an aspect of a person's character that you wouldn't see with a plain old studio background.

Also: most people aren't models or actors, they aren't always at ease in front of a camera. Taking a portrait in a real setting while the subject is actually doing something let's them be more relaxed and natural, and that can make all the difference in the world between a dull portrait and a great one.