w/nw Environmental Portraits

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Are 80% of these not just portraits or photos of people, I know some will say that they've been taken in an environment, but that definition applies to all photographs.
For me an environmental portrait should feed the viewer more personal information about that subject, and the environment should pertain to them personally, otherwise it's a portrait taken in a park, cafe, street or whatever.
If not, then a surely a head and shoulder shot taken aginst a white backdrop in a studio environment becomes an environmental portrait.
 
Paulbe said:
Bob--great picture! Where was that taken?
Paul
Click to expand...

Paul: the photo was made in Guaro, a small village in eastern Cuba that once was home to sugar cane workers. The only employment in the village is people who work for the Cuban government as doctors, dentists, policemen, or administrative positions. The Cuban government stopped growing sugar cane and shut down the sugar cane processing plant in nearby Preston (renamed Guatemala) because the government centrally managed sugar cane operations costs to produce sugar is more than than the international open market price.

My sort of Cuban girlfriend was originally from this village and I sometimes spend time with her family there. None of them have jobs and she left to work in Havana a long time ago.

The man's name is "Kiki". He has never worked and survives on government benefits. One cannot say he "lives" only that he "survives". The housing is furnished by the government having been expropriated after the Revolucion along with all the sugar cane fields and processing factories.

The rum bottle is the cheapest Havana Club which is just under the equivalent of $3 a bottle. However the actual rum in the bottle is bootleg rum made nearby which costs just under $1 a bottle when you bring your own bottle to refill. I can immediately tell what it is by the taste. Cubans always share rum.
 
Bob--amazing story. You seem to visit Cuba a lot--hopefully, relations between the US and Cuba will thaw sufficiently so that that our countries are at least talking.
Thanks again for posting--I really like all your pix...
Paul
 
Roosevelt Dudley lives in Rosedale MS where the most common occupation is "gettin' a check" (i.e. welfare). Steel Reserve, a high gravity malt liquor is the local drink of choice.

Rosedale, a small town in the Mississippi Delta has a rich blues music heritage. It was immortalized in the line "going down to Rosedale, my rider by my side....." from the song "Crossroads" by Eric Clapton / Cream. Rosedale is the location of MS HW#1 and #8, known as the "Crossroads" where in the 1930s blues legend, Robert Johnson, supposedly traded his soul at midnight to the devil for his musical ability.

I brought Roosevelt a print of this photo six months after I made it. He gave me the hat he was wearing in the photo as a show of his gratitude. Unfortunately it had a nest of roaches living inside.

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