Symbolic settings add meaning to portraits. (PHOTOCRITIQUE).

Most portraits just show smiling people posing before a backdrop. They are little more than superficial descriptions. Portraits made as communication, however, often capture their subjects in action, freezing moments in time that can tell viewers something about the feelings and character of the subjects.

Another kind of communicative portrait, in which subjects are photographed in representative settings, also can be effective. People can look right into the camera, as long as they aren't self-consciously posing. If they display body language that is natural and not forced, and if the settings are appropriately symbolic, such portraits can tell a story. They are called environmental portraits.

Columbia, S.C., photographer Jeff Amberg's portrait of a policeman in front of a house is a good example. The officer's arms rest naturally at the hips. His expression is serious. He does not take his mission lightly. Police work involves security of property. And that's the point the symbolic setting adds to this portrait. SCANA Corporation used this portrait in its quarterly magazine to represent its home security services. Another look reveals still another symbol -- the SCANA security sign at lower right tells us who is protecting this home, with the help, of course, of the local police.

Sometimes a speaker at a meeting can be photographed as an environmental portrait. In our second example, a NASA scientist (Moffett Field, Calif.) is captured on film as he talks on a technical subject. His fingers are poised to express his ideas -- point by point. But the portrait does not stop there. Behind him are vividly colored projections, which, to a technically oriented audience, may well symbolize the nature of his expertise.

Our third example, opening Allstate Insurance Company's annual report (Northbrook, Ill.), features an environmental portrait of Allstate's CEO incongruously posed in the middle of a lonely, twisting country road, his hands in his pockets. Allstate protects its customers' pockets from financial losses because of dangers of the road. This hazardous stretch, symbolically monitored by the CEO as it curves away around a blind curve into the unknown, represents still another factor resolved by insurance -- the role of uncertainty. In the accompanying text, the CEO says that Allstate is transforming the industry by setting new standards of customer service. This environmental portrait provides context for those words.

Our fourth example offers meaning through a less obvious setting. Debbie Smartt, staff photographer for U.S. Postal Service in Nashville, Tenn., conveys a sense of familial bonding in this environmental portrait of her children. Since she is a photographer by trade, her children are well used to being in front of her camera. She shoots them on the front porch with a medium telephoto lens, perfect for portraiture. Using a close vantage point, Smartt surrounds her children with softly focused Victorian wicker furniture, embracing them with generational symbolism. The body language of both children is virtually identical. They seem comfortable with each other. They're in touch. The boy tilts his head, bonding the siblings into a single unit. Smartt has captured her children as she will want to remember them.

Philip N. Douglis, ABC, is director of The Douglis Visual Workshops, now in its 30th year of training communicators in visual literacy. Douglis, an ABC Fellow, is the most widely known consultant on editorial photography for organizations. He offers a comprehensive six-person Communicating with Pictures workshop every May and October in Oak Creek Canyon, near Sedona, Arizona. For current openings and registration information, call Douglis at 602-493-6709, or e-mail him at pnd1 @home.com. He also welcomes tearsheets for possible use in this column. Send to The Douglis Visual Workshops, 2505 E. Carol Avenue, Phoenix, AZ 85028.