environmental portraits

Environmental portraits are a special type of portrait that frequently accompanies an informative news or magazine article about a person. The photographer makes a portrait that is posed and highly contrived in order to tell a story. The subject is placed in their "environment" and posed with props that relate to their profession. This style of photography emerged from the work of Arnold Newman and has become a hallmark of celebrity and business photostories, many gracing the cover of magazines such as Time, Newsweek, and Fortune.

Sam Dobrow is adept at posing and configuring people in their environment. He may use a wide angle lens and shoot from a strange angle to create distortions or emphasize items by placing them close to the camera. Whatever story goes with the personality being photographed, Sam looks for items in the environment to balance visual interest between the portrait of the subject and objects they use and interact with. Sam is comfortable interviewing executives, celebrities, and VIPs. He can handle both the photography and news assignment.