Environmental Portraits

I was recently shooting some portraits of a  family in Mesa, AZ that owns an orange grove, and wanted some family portraits taken around their property, which included the grove, a vegetable garden, and cool old farm equipment. 

 

We were finishing up the session when someone joked about getting a picture in the chicken coop. I thought it was a great idea, but had one condition - one of them had to hold a chicken. The youngest boy in the family eagerly volunteered.  This was a test shot to test my lighting for the family portrait.

 

Lighting:

LumoPro LP160 at 1/16 power into a white shoot-through umbrella camera-left outside the chicken coop. 

 

Post Processing: When I saw this image in Lightroom, I knew that I wanted to do a sort of homage to Dorothea Lange - whom I admire for her powerful portraits including 'Migrant Mother'.

 

I spent some time getting to know Lightroom 4's new basic sliders while going for the low key look on this environmental portrait.