MAKING

Create a Portrait that Tells a Story
Make an environmental portrait of a person important to you.

Overview

A good portrait reveals aspects of a person's character to the viewer. In an environmental portrait, the person portrayed is placed in a setting that shares information about the person's life and/or interests. The person may also be holding objects related to their professional trade or interests and hobbies. In this activity, students will learn about environmental portraiture by viewing a portrait by Dorothea Lange, and then creating a portrait of their own.

Length of Activity

• 20 - 30 minutes for discussion in class
• 1 - 2 hours at home to create portrait
  
  Materials
  
  
• Portrait from Picture This Web site
• Camera with film
• Person to be your subject in an environmental portrait

Activity

1. Begin the activity by letting your students know they will be looking at an environmental portrait, and then creating a portrait of their own by photographing a person that is important to them.

2. As you view the image, explain to your students that portraits are pictures of people.

One type of portrait, an environmental portrait:

• places the person portrayed in a setting or
  environment that shares information about the
  person's life and/or interests.
• includes props, or objects that relate to a person's
  professional trade or interests and hobbies.
  Sometimes people hold their favorite possessions
  to show their economic standing in the community.

While viewing the image, ask your students:

• How does the setting of this photograph tell you
  about the life of this young man? What do his
  surroundings tell us about his life?
• What about the object the young man is holding?
  Do you think this object is a prized possession?
  What does this object say about his life and his interests?
• Do you think the photographer Dorothea Lange
  has created a successful portrait? Why or why not?

Information about the photograph
This photograph was taken by Dorothea Lange. She photographed the harsh conditions of poor families in hard times. This photograph was taken in 1935, and shows a young migrant farm worker in a Coachella Valley labor camp in California. He might be singing a corrido, or Mexican folk ballad.

For more information on corridos and this photograph, please click on the image below.

3. After discussion about the Dorothea Lange image, prepare your students to make an environmental portrait of their own. Ask your students the following questions:

• Who would you like to photograph?
  Why is this person important to you?
• How can your photograph of that person
  best reveal their true character and what they
  like to do? What type of setting would be best
  for the portrait?
• What objects will the person hold that express
  their interests, or what they do for work?

4. Make arrangements for the development of the photographs. After the portraits have been taken and the film has been developed and picture processed, have students share their portraits with the rest of the class.

• Have each student present their portrait, without giving information about it to the rest of the class.
• Ask the other students:
• What can they learn about the personality and interests of the person in the photograph by just looking at the picture? What do they see in the photograph that makes them say that?

After a discussion, have the student who created the portrait share any other details about the portrait they would like the class to know.

5. Conclude by asking students how the experience of completing this project was for them.

Vocabulary

Portrait - a picture of a person. A portrait can be a drawing, painting, photograph, or sculpture of a person.
Environmental portrait - a portrait that places the person portrayed in a setting or environment that shares information about the person's life and/or interests. Props may be used to communicate a person's professional trade, interests, or hobbies.

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