My Photographic Journey: Working Environment Photo Shoot

Today I visited my dads works in the hope of capturing some great shots of his colleagues at North West Trade Printers based in Bolton. Being aware that Environmental Portraits must show an important relationship between the sitter and background I felt that taking shots within someone's working environment would be an excellent way to convey this genre, in the light that the majority of the working class life is spent during the many hours at their company.

Setting off before dawn, yes a harsh awakening to my alarm at 4:30am, I met my dad within the hour and followed him to his works for his early shift starting at 6:00am. Already pre-arranged with his manager Tony the night before. I was granted permission to walk freely around the premisses asking his much bewildered staff to pose for me at their usual workstations.

Luckily for me everyone was happy to pose even though they were unaware of my visit, and especially as being early in the morning . . . not exactly everyone's cup of tea to have a camera pointing at you at work, even more so before a usual breakfast time of say 8 - 9am! Below are my contact prints from the day and a selection of the best images obtained from the morning photo shoot, with advice on any manipulation taken to strengthen the attention to detail and to enhance the amount of colour within the original Raw Image.

My 1st Environmental Working Portrait was of Andy. I directed him to stand at the side end of his Heidelberg printing machine to capture the master with his working tool. His end product was at a near end therefore this being a perfect time to show his work flow - from the printing inks captured behind Andy, to Andy being the main machine operator, to his final product produced below right of the image.

RAW image

DSLR settings - ISO 2000, F4 @ 1/30 - White balance (Fluorescent)

Within 'Lightroom' I firstly cropped the image to give a squarer format as there was initially too much space within the right hand side of the frame as shown above. This then added more impact as a tighter composition. I also adjusted the contrast, saturation of colour and tried to improve the graininess of the photograph by increasing the colour noise and adding extra luminance smoothing.

The Raw image was expected to be grainy due to the high ISO speed I was using on my DSLR, this being due to the low amount of artificial fluorescent lighting within the print works and due to me wanting my images to be natural, I decided on this method so not to use my compact flash which would have added unnatural highlights to Andy's forehead.

To complete the image I also added a graduated filter from the right hand side, deducting 0.5stop exposure to compensate the over exposed view inside the Heidelberg machine. This then creating a complete perfect exposed Environmental Work Portrait of Andy.

This is a shot of John who assists the printers' with their machines. I decided to capture him whilst he was loading the paper onto the back of the Heidelberg needed for the machines next printing job. I focussed in on my subject's eyes within the near centre of the frame therefore creating a soft out of focus, shallow depth of field foreground which nicely framed the lower part of the photograph.

RAW image

DSLR settings - ISO 2000, F4 @ 1/30 - White balance (Fluorescent)

Happy with the composition of this image no cropping was needed however again due to the over exposed area within the image ( on the top of the paper ) I used the graduated filter and reduced the amount of exposure by 0.5stop from the bottom to the centre of the image. To complete my final image I added extra contrast, clarity, colour noise and luminance smoothing.

As I was at my dad's works it would have been rude of me not to take a few working portraits of me old man :-) and I knew exactly where I wanted to capture him, at his light board where he firstly places the 'plates' and inputs where the amounts of black, cyan, magenta and yellow should be added to the print. This is also the area where he will check the print (hence via a light board) to ensure that the machine has been set up correctly before speeding up the printing process to the designated amount ordered by the customer.

I also decided to ensure that the huge scale of the Heidelberg was shown via the background, again capturing all key elements of the printer's working environment, with master and machine within the majority of the frame.

RAW image

DSLR settings - ISO 1000, F4 @ 1/60 - White balance (Fluorescent)

A lot of work was needed via 'Lightroom' due to the large amount of over exposed light created from the light board, I started with the graduated filter and also used brush strokes along the lights within the photograph reducing exposure and brightness. I then decided to use a little vignette so the corners of the image would blend nicely and draw the viewer's attention to the middle of the photograph. As well as I added extra contrast, clarity and saturation and then decided to warm up my image by increasing the white balance then adding a little more vibrance of the colours to complete my finished photograph.

RAW image

DSLR settings - ISO 2000, F4 @ 1/30 - White balance (Fluorescent)

As with the 1st portrait of my dad above I again had to reduce both exposure and brightness around the lighting area with the use of the gradient and brush tools. The main difference within the two pictures is that I set them at different white balances to compliment the picture at hand.

On the opposite side of the print works was the finishing department where I met Steve working on the guillotine, although after viewing my image back not long after I had taken his portrait I had convinced myself that he was Paul O' Grady in disguise!

RAW image

DSLR settings - ISO 1000, F4 @ 1/60 - White balance (Fluorescent)

My image turned out rather dull therefore I increased the exposure by 0.5stop with the use of the graduated filter from the top to just past half way on the photograph. I also decided to crop the image giving Steve a more prominent place within the frame and lastly gave finishing touches by increasing the contrast, clarity, vibrance and saturation of the colours within the image

Further along the line was Derek on the folding machine. I sensed straight away that he did not feel comfortable being photographed however after a little persuasion of ensuring him that I was more likely to break my camera lens then he would, I took a shot whilst he casually lent against his working machine.

RAW image

DSLR settings - ISO 1250, F4 @ 1/30 - White balance (Fluorescent)

As with Steve's portrait just above I decided to crop Derek's portrait as well to again give him a more prominant place within the frame. I also used the same tools as previous via 'Lightroom' to enhance my image although rather than increase exposure I decreased it slightly from each side of the frame , bar the bottom edge.