Don’t just keep on doing what you’ve always done

Sony A7 II • Tamron 28-200mm f2.8-5.6 Di III RXD at 200mm • 1/1600sec at f/8, ISO 400

It’s good to develop a personal style, a unique ‘look’, a personal vision that’s instantly recognisable… but how do you know you’re not just getting stuck in a rut? And how do you know what really excites and moves you if you never try anything new?

I’ve always been a ‘wide-angle’ photographer. I love the exaggerated perspectives of wide-angle lenses, the sense of depth from foreground objects looming large against distant backgrounds, the dynamic angles and lines, the sense of theatre and drama. This has become a habit, and not all habits are good.

I’ve just come back from a week on the coast shooting in a completely different way. Usually I’m happiest with a focal length of 20mm, but this week I shot almost exclusively at 200mm – and I learned some stuff.

I realised that the flattened perspective made distant backdrops loom large, and this produces a dramatic perspective in a different way. I mean, I knew that already, but until I started shooting this way it didn’t properly sink in.

I also realised that longer focal lengths need handling in a different way. Not just the practical stuff, like higher shutter speeds to avoid camera shake, but the need to look at composition differently, with more emphasis on planes and tones. I thought I’d find my longer-range shots more placid and uninspiring, but it turned out they were just different.

It was also quite liberating not to have to keep worrying about exposure for the sky and not blowing it out, because most of the time I could leave it out of the frame entirely.

Perhaps the biggest advantage of longer focal lengths is the control you have over backgrounds. You can control the background much more effectively at 200mm than 20mm and frame your shots to make the most of the contrast with your subject. With a 20mm lens, you have almost no control because there’s just so much in the frame.

I came away feeling quite different about telephoto lenses, especially for landscapes. They can actually emphasise the scale of a scene, where wide-angle lenses tend to diminish everything that’s not right up close to the camera. Interesting.