Fashion Fun with Wide Angle
Posted under: Oftentimes people relegate wide angle lenses to landscape/scenery photography. When talking about shooting people with wide angle lenses, people point to the perspective distortion and talk about how the people’s facial features will be all stretched and nothing will be proportional. All that’s said is true, but I think these can be used to the photographer’s advantage.
Instead of shooting with a 50mm or longer where everything is in proportion, use the distortion of the wide angle to emphasize your images. Here are a few examples of wide angle use for fashion photography.
Wide angle was used to emphasise (not misspelling, just british spelling) the model’s facial expression more than her outfit.
Unlike the straight on images from the same scene, the wide angle distortion in this case makes Jordyn looks as if she is ‘exploding’ out of the frame. An interesting take I suppose. Also keep in mind, this is not even ultra wide angle, I believe this is only at 17mm on a 1.5 crop sensor.
Shooting low with an wide angle will always provide interesting shots. This method was used to accentuate her legs.
So next time you go out for fashion or portrait shoots, don’t leave the wide angle at home, go out and have some distortion fun. I’m still on the waiting list for my Tokina 11-16 f2.8. This lens is hard to find!