Wide angle is not only for landscapes

Hi guys,

I've been shooting the Cabaret Versatile girls for a while now. This gave me a good graps on capturing live dancers without flashes, I learned to listen to the music to shoot at the right moment.

Since I have been shooting them, I've pretty much always used the same gear, 35mm lens f1.4, just because shows always happen in pretty dark environment and f1.4 gave me a bit more flexibility. But for the last show I decided to try something new and think a bit out of the box, I went wide angle.

Normally or rather traditionally wide angle lenses are used for landscapes and architecture type shots and rarely on people. The reason is, it has a tendency to distort things a little bit which could be unflattering when shooting human beings.

Although for this shot I think it totally works:

The wide angle emphasizes the length of the dancers legs (which go for miles anyway) and gave the pose a more dramatic approach.

So there you go, when you think you are out of ideas try an unusual lens for your current situation, you might be surprised with the results. Next up, close up details while dancing, that's going to be quite a challenge!

Jeremy