Urban portraits

Wendy Evans roams the graffiti-daubed city streets in search of atmospheric backdrops for gritty urban portraits

While portraits at country houses, out in the elds or in a studio setting are all perfectly valid locations for pleasant results, it’s only when you head into the city that the environment lends a sense of drama, foreboding and danger to the mix. That’s what we’re looking at here, with a selection of urban portraits.

1 No smiling

The rst rule of urban photo club is that no one looks happy. Subways or underpasses are great locations but they invariably mean that your subject will be backlit, unless it’s really dull overhead or you’re shooting at night. So use ll-ash to light the subject. Even better, use a ash that you can position and bounce light o‚ the ceiling or nearby walls. Use a wide aperture to minimise the distant background.

2 Get low down

Take a low position, looking upwards, to give a distorted, brooding view. If the subject has trendy footwear, use a wide-angle lens and get right down to ground level, shooting up. If you’re going to use colour, something that contrasts with the background is a good idea.

3 Use alleyways

Shoot your subject in narrow alleys and streets for a claustrophobic atmosphere that emphasises the city bearing down on them. Use an angled shot for a more dynamic result. Convert the image to mono to emphasise the background lines.

4 Make use of decay

As well as grati, as seen in the rst shot, look out for crumbling buildings, postindustrial decay and soulless machinery. Here we have a grim, urban backdrop with fences and a gas storage holder. To keep all that in focus, we used an aperture of f/14.