Bad Environmental Portraits

With the background here, we can kind of see what the photographer is trying to portray (although her being in a church is kind of confusing...), but the lighting is just very dark and dull. It doesn't make the subject appealing whatsoever.

I understand what the photographer wants to show, and it's kind of quirky and an interesting concept... but the alignment is all crooked, the lighting is dull, and the whole picture is just really awkward.

For this more commercial approach, what I really don't like is the halo-like light in the background. It seems like it's not white balanced at all, and I'd want to see a shot that is cleaner than this for something commercial. (It also doesn't look like she's in an office, rather it looks like a poorly lit basement.)

Yes, we get that she's looking at a computer screen, but we have no idea of the sense of location, and the subject's face is just awkward, and distorted.

The lighting could be better in this picture, and I'd prefer it if the subject wasn't smiling...It's also the photographer's job to make the subject look attractive (or interesting)...and she doesn't...

Yes, we know she's doing yoga, and we could deduce that she's a yoga teacher. The lighting though isn't that great, and the whole pose is just weird and awkward, as well as her face expression.

This has potential, but the post-production just ruined everything...

I have no idea what's going on here, and what kind of story they photographer is trying to tell us. And this picture doesn't make the subject look attractive at all, even though that's the main purpose...

This has potential, but the lighting is dull, and the composition isn't the greatest either. Maybe if there was more interaction between the subject and photographer...

I have no idea what is going on here, and what the "environment" even is. Maybe it's about our 'green' environment? If we would know more about the context the picture could be a lot better, because this person actually did a decent job with lighting.

Photos found on Flickr, by searching "Environmental Portraits".

I know that these pictures are quite terrible, and I could've chosen pictures that are more subjective and better than these, while still not being great, but I decided to take these ones, as they're from people on Flickr, who are experimenting with environmental portraits. Some of them have the right idea going on, but these pictures really underline that when you have poor lighting, uninteresting compositions, and awkward poses, that the environmental portraits could go horribly wrong, even though, some may have thought they were "thinking outside the box". We have to be careful not to make these same mistakes...