The widening effect
some distortion effects created by wide-
angle lenses are best avoided altogether.
Because this kind of lens “pulls” the
subject to the edges of the image, it can
widen as well as elongate the body.
in the image on the left the model is
positioned to one side, and so has been
pulled outward to that side. to avoid the
worst of this effect, place your model
more centrally in the frame, as i did in
the image on the right.
composition & perspective 117Elongating the body
For these images i got down very low with my
wide-angle lens in order to elongate the model’s
legs. this technique is sometimes used—in a more
subtle way—by fashion photographers, to make
their models look taller. Distortion can also be used
to create graphic abstraction, to emphasize
unusual viewpoints, and to focus on interesting
connections between elements within the image.