Photography Tip – Wide Angle Portraits

Most people don’t think about using a wide-angle lens when photographing people or animals. They tend to reserve that lens for photographing majestic or sweeping landscapes. You are missing out on some great photo opportunities by only using your wide-angle lens for landscape photography. Next time you are out photographing people or animals, use only your wide-angle lens. It’s a good photography exercise and one that I recommend to students all the time. It will force you to approach and interact with your subjects in a different way. It will also get you thinking about and using perspective more creatively. I took all of the photos below using my Nikon 12-24mm lens. It is one of my favorite lenses and is always in my camera bag.

Next time you are out photographing a person or animal, grab your wide-angle lens and shoot from a low perspective looking up at your subject. Sit on the ground, kneel down or elevate your subject … shoot up. Photographing just one person or animal with a wide-angle lens will force you to get close to your subject. So move in close, make a connection with your subject, engage your subject (don’t be shy) and create a memorable portrait. I took the following photograph while sitting on the ground. I was close enough to touch the subject. I told him to look down at me and give me his best “There’s a New Sheriff in Town” look and created the following portrait. I wanted to showcase the arm badge and I wanted it very large in the frame. Wide-angle lenses are perfect for creative distortion. You can make the element nearest the lens very large. You can do it with any lens, but wide-angles are ideal for this. Remember the days when everyone was photographing dogs so their noses looked huge. If you photograph a dog with a long muzzle too close, you will get nose distortion.

I removed the color from the sky in PhotoShop. I thought that would make the subject stand out more and add a slightly ominous mood to the portrait. Creative post processing can take your
portrait to the next level. There are many ways to remove color selectively. One way is to create an adjustment layer, select the Black and White option, then paint the color back in where you
want it.

I photographed the giraffe below from pretty much the same angle. I was on one of those safari tour buses that are open on the sides. Giraffes and zebras were roaming around and coming right up to the bus. Giraffes are curious and gentle souls and I love photographing them. When this particular giraffe walked up to the bus, I leaned out the window and dropped as low as I could, waited a minute or two until the giraffe was right above me and sure enough he happened to look down. I was ready with my wide-angle and captured him looking right at the camera. The wide-angle lens and low perspective allowed me to capture that long, magnificent neck and head towering over me.

Wide-angle lenses are great when you need to photograph a group of people. You often need a shorter focal length to get everybody in the frame. Instead of photographing the group straight on, try photographing them at an angle instead and go for some creative distortion. Notice how the person closest to my lens is large while the teacher standing in the back is small in comparison? Shooting on an angle made this portrait more dynamic and interesting. I took this photograph in a small village in China. A group of students were sketching a church. I just “happened” upon them. I stooped down to get eye level and got a few quick shots off. I love photographs that tell stories. I wanted to capture this story before the students realized they were being photographed. I love the different expressions and degrees of concentration on their faces. Wide-angle lenses have wonderful depth of field and are perfect for story telling portraits.

The following photograph was taken at an aquarium exhibit in a small zoo. This was a very large tank with a group of piranha. I needed a wide-angle lens to capture the large viewing area. What amazed me about these piranha is that they were almost motionless and seemed to be suspended in the water. There was a slight movement to their tails, but for the most part they were very still. They swam in groups and then stopped in front of the viewing window. They stayed there for several seconds before moving on. The blue color was spectacular and the low lighting made them look both beautiful and eerie. I mounted my camera on a tripod, shot them straight on and took several photographs of different groups as they stopped in front of the window. I was mesmerized and spent over a half an hour photographing them. I also took photos of individual fish using a moderate zoom lens, but it did not have the same impact nor scope that the group shot did. And I needed a wide-angle lens to capture that. You may not think about taking a wide-angle lens to photograph fish in an aquarium, but you should and I am glad I did that day.

Photos and content ©  Jill Flynn ~ Visual Harmony Photography