How to Photograph People Using a Wide-angle Lens for Travel Photography

Now is that Spring is here the travel season has started (in the northern hemisphere at least). Naturally, as photographers, when we travel, we like to make photos of local people. People are interesting, and including locals in your photos adds a sense of authenticity, mood and difference (the people in other countries tend to look and dress differently).

Out of all the lens choices you could make for this type of photography a wide-angle lens seems the least intuitive. Many photographers use telephotos because it lets them keep their distance and make photos without being noticed.

Wide-angles are different. You need to get closer to people and there’s no chance of doing so unnoticed.

The wide-angle lens mindset

That brings us to what I think of as the wide-angle lens mindset. Here’s how it works.

When you’re using a wide-angle lens, you’re making photos of scenes that happen to have people in them, not people.

It’s a subtle difference, but an important one, especially if you’re nervous about photographing people. Somebody, especially a tourist or a traveler, making photos of a scene is normal behavior. The locals expect it and there’s nothing unusual about it.

You’re looking for scenes with local people in them. The people are part of the scene (and the photo) but may not be the main subject.

Characteristics of wide-angle lenses

Wide-angle lenses have several characteristics that you need to understand to get the best from them.

• Wide-angles are lenses of inclusion. They let fit more of the scene in. This is different from telephotos, which are lenses that exclude most of the scene.

• Wide-angles give great depth of field. This is good if you want most of the scene in focus, not so good if you want bokeh. If bokeh’s your thing, consider a standard prime lens or short telephoto instead.

• These two characteristics combined lead us to the downside of using wide-angles – it’s easy to fit too much in the frame, leading to messy, chaotic compositions. You need to be aware of this and train your eye to look for simpler scenes that photograph well. Practice and awareness are your friends here.

• Wide-angles tend to be small, light lenses. My Fujifilm primes are a great example of this. Combine a small wide-angle with a small camera body and you’ve got a light, unobtrusive camera set-up you can carry around all day. It’s much easier than carting around a big dSLR with a massive telephoto.

• Mobile phones have wide-angle lenses too. This article is written for camera users, but the ideas also apply to camera phones.

Travel photos of people made with wide-angle lenses

That said it’s time to look at some examples of how all this works. I made all these photos myself with wide-angle lenses on my travels. There are three different ideas into action. You can find your own way to use all three.

1. Use wide-angle lenses to tell a story and show context

I made the photo below on the banks of a river in the town of Puerto Aysen in southern Chile. The use of a wide-angle lens let me place myself in the scene and show the man painting the boat in context. You see him working in the environment that I found him in, surrounded by wooden boats, with tree covered hills in the distance, and low grey clouds that typify the climate in this region.

Above: Focal length 18mm (APS-C)

I made the next photo in a remote Bolivian village. We were passing through, and two children came out to meet us. There’s lots of detail that tells a story about these kids’ lives – like their grubby clothes, the bleak mountain environment, the mud brick walls and the primitive houses. Using a wide-angle lens let me capture all this important story-telling detail.

Above: Focal length 22mm (APS-C)

2. Wait for somebody to enter the scene

Sometimes you might find a scene to photograph. It looks amazing through the viewfinder, and you’ve taken the time to figure out the composition. But it needs something extra to lift it. That something extra is usually a local person, somebody who wanders into the scene and completes the composition.

This technique needs a little patience, but its easy to put into action. The trick is to keep the camera to your eye while the local passes through the frame. Most people will assume you’re waiting for them to move out of the way so you can make a photo.

That’s how I made the photo below, of a house in the town of Tupiza in Bolivia. By itself, the house is interesting. But the appearance of the local girl adds interest and lifts the composition.

Above: Focal length 18mm (APS-C)

I had a similar situation at Mehrangarh Fort in Jodphur, India. I found this spiral staircase inside the fort. It looked interesting, but it wasn’t enough by itself to make a photo. So I leaned against a wall with my camera, and waited while people wandered past the staircase. It didn’t take long for me to get the photo below.

Above: Focal length 14mm (APS-C)

3. Make photos of people with permission

There are times when you travel when you gain permission from somebody to make a photo. I made both the portraits you see below in India, and in both cases the man in the photo beckoned me over and posed for me.

The first shows a man sitting outside a house in the blue city of Jodphur. The wide-angle lens let me make a portrait of the man, and capture the brilliant blue color of the building behind him. The metal green door and the tantalizing glimpse into the building’s interior add layers of detail to the composition.

Above: Focal length 14mm (APS-C)

The second portrait shows a man hard at work cooking street food. Using a wide-angle lens let me move in close and get all the important details in sharp focus – the frying food and the man himself. It also let me include lots of scene setting, story-telling detail, like the Hindi writing on the left.

Above: Focal length 14mm (APS-C)

Conclusion

Wide-angle lenses are perhaps the trickiest lenses of all to use for making travel photos of people. But remembering these three key ideas (tell a story, let somebody into the scene and make portraits with permission) helps you get the best out of your wide-angle lens.

Three ideas are easy to cope with, in fact, the first two ideas alone could keep you busy the whole trip.

Above all, remember the mindset of wide-angle travel photography – you’re photographing scenes that happen to include people. It’s normal behavior and nothing to be worried about.

Mastering Lenses ebook

You can learn more about using all sorts of lenses, including wide-angles, in my ebook Mastering Lenses. You’ll learn how to make beautiful photos with any lens with lots of great ideas like the one in this article.

Click here to learn more or buy