Gabriella Wilkins in Studio

Breaking the Rules: A Wide-Angle Beauty Session with Gabriella Wilkins

Test shoots are where the best creative risks happen, and this session with Gabriella Wilkins was all about pushing past my usual comfort zone. We stripped everything down to basics—my home studio, a blank wall, and a two-light setup bouncing into the ceiling and opposite wall for that soft, wraparound illumination. No clients, no brief, no budget constraints. Just two collaborators with years of history figuring out what happens when we deliberately work against our typical instincts.

The game-changer came when Gabriella suggested we shoot wide—16-35mm range instead of the 100mm macro I typically gravitate toward for beauty work. I'll admit I was skeptical. Wide-angle glass for tight beauty shots feels counterintuitive when you're trained to think flattering focal lengths and compression. But that slight distortion ended up being exactly what made these images sing. The perspective exaggerates her features in this striking way that reads as editorial and unmistakably Gen-Z—there's an energy and immediacy to the framing that a longer lens wouldn't have captured. Her braids take on this dynamic presence in the frame, and the close proximity creates an intimacy that pulls you directly into her expression.

What makes Gabriella such an incredible collaborator is her ability to transform minimal setups into something that looks considered and intentional. She understands how to work for the camera—shifting her expression, playing with the light, letting her freckles and eyes become the anchors of each frame. The resulting images are proof that limitations breed creativity. Sometimes the best work happens when you strip away the production value and just focus on the fundamentals: light, expression, and a willingness to experiment with what you think you know about how things should be shot.