Surma portrait

When I was first starting out in photography, I was taught that the ideal focal length for portraiture was between 85 and 105mm. The idea was that these medium telephotos flattened the nose somewhat, and this always made people look better. I’ve disagreed with this orthodoxy for 60 years. Instead, I prefer a longer focal length lens because of the extra compression as well as the shallow depth of field which makes backgrounds go soft. This portrait of a Surma girl in Ethiopia is an example. I used a 100-500mm telephoto set to 472mm. The aperture was f/7.1, and I positioned myself far enough from her so the depth of field was enough so all of her adornment was sharp while the background was completely undefined. Another advantage of using a long lens is the subject doesn’t feel my presence is so intrusive. Instead of shooting from 4 or 5 feet, I’m making the portrait from 10 or 12 feet. Had the sky not been overcast, I would have asked my subject to move into the shade of a tree or a thatched hut. My other settings were 1/500 and 1000 ISO.