“the physical distance creates emotional closeness.”
When you first start out in photography, it is completely natural to think that getting closer to your subject is the only way to capture a powerful shot. We are often taught to fill the frame and jump right into the centre of the action. But as you gain more experience, you realize that crowding someone’s personal space usually makes them put up a guard. True comfort and vulnerability behind the lens often require the exact opposite approach: taking a few steps back. Learning how to use physical distance as a creative tool can transform a static portrait into a story.
Giving the Subject Room to Breathe at 85mm
Giving a subject physical space completely changes their body language. Without a lens pushed directly into their face, a person can relax their shoulders, stop thinking about the camera, and focus entirely on the environment around them. To understand the power of this boundary, we turned to award-winning professional photographer Nicole Ashley to share her perspective on navigating space and composition.
Nicole notes that one of her favorite things about working with a longer focal length, like an 85mm lens, is how the physical separation changes the dynamic. As she explains, “the physical distance creates emotional closeness.” By stepping out of their immediate bubble, the technical pressure vanishes. “They settle into what feels comfortable instead of feeling the pressure of having a camera in their face,” Nicole notes. “I find they relax much faster because they have room to just be together, and that’s when the genuine connection starts to show. Those are always the images that end up feeling the most authentic”.
Quiet Storytelling
For photographers trying to move past standard shots, the most profound stories happen in between structured poses – the fleeting glances, a soft breath, or a quiet moment of interaction with the landscape.
Nicole reflects that her absolute favorite frames are the unscripted ones that unfold entirely in the gaps of a shoot, noting that shifting her position “lets me observe instead of direct.” By melting into the landscape from a distance, the subject is completely free to interact with their surroundings naturally. “Because I’m farther away,” she says, “those fleeting moments unfold naturally”.
Furthermore, understanding the optics of a tighter lens helps you isolate the subject cleanly. As Nicole puts it, “The lens also does a beautiful job of separating the subject from the background, drawing your eye exactly where the emotion is happening without distractions competing for attention”.
Framing the Environment
Nicole points out that while people often view a compressed lens strictly as a portrait tool, she loves using it to tell a deeper story.
“Instead of only filling the frame with the couple, I’ll step back and intentionally include the environment – whether that’s using the landscape, foreground elements, or the way the light hits everything around them.”
By deliberately pulling back, the photographer learns to use the world around the subject to frame the narrative. Reflecting on how a compressed perspective pulls a grand backdrop forward, Nicole shares that she loves how it “compresses the scene, making mountains, trees, or a glowing sunset feel even more dramatic.” She explains that “it creates images that feel intimate without losing the atmosphere, so the final photo feels less like a close-up portrait and more like a memory of what that moment actually felt like.”
Related Products
