Tip of the week: Shoot wide and close to give a unique perspective in your portraits. It is usually not recommended to take portraits with a wide angle lens due to distortion and the wider perspective. You inevitably have to get close of the person that you are taking the photo of to help fill the frame with a wide angle lens. I find that sometime the wide angle can help tell the story of the photo with the extra surroundings providing context for the main subject. I usually only bring out the wide angle for portraits of close friends or family due to the extreme perspective it gives (you have to be uncomfortably close to ensure that they are well represented in the frame). Here are some of my favorite wide angle portraits of my daughter from the past year. I place the camera very close to get a good view of her and the wide angle will help show all of the background around her to provide a unique perspective and extra context for the photo . All photos were taken at 17-24mm.

When using a wide angle for portraits, make sure that you try to keep the subject within the central part of the frame due to elongation of the frame edges with wide angle optics. You have to really consider what part of the background is going to provide the best 'context' for the photo. Sometimes I will shoot low to help emphasize the sky and other times I will shoot high to emphasize the ground.

17mm           f/4                 1/400sec               ISO 400