For years, I steered clear of using "very wide" focal lengths (wider than 50mm in my world) in my portrait photography, mainly because I didn't understand how to work with them, uh, the right way. The idea of distorting my subjects or misrepresenting their features was intimidating, so I stuck with the safer, more familiar range of focal lengths (50, 85, 135 and everything in between).
It wasn't until I started experimenting and learning the nuances of wide-angle lenses that I began to appreciate their actual potential – their energy.
I discovered that with the right approach, wide focal lengths could add a unique, dynamic energy to my portraits, capturing more of the environment, feeling more intimate in an odd way, and creating a sense of depth that wasn't possible with my "comfort zone" lenses.
While I had some successes with wider focal lengths before this, this was the first shoot where I felt I "got" it, and learned to "see" that it was working – distortion or not.
These were shot in 2019, I think, or thereabouts, in Florida.
Only took me a frickin' decade to "learn" to use wide focal lengths, haha. But since then, I've learned to use wider focal lengths when the mood and vision is right, and I am obsessed with the looks and energies something like my 17-40 4.0 gets me.
