Robert Capa once said, "If your pictures aren't good enough, you're not close enough.”

I bet you’ve heard that one before. I know I have, but it’s a challenge I regularly face. With candid and street photography, I have always felt more comfortable with a little bit of distance and a huge lens between me and my subject. I can chalk that up to a little social anxiety, but my real fear was that being too close to my subject would interfere with the portrait make them feel more self-conscious and awkward, or even annoyed, and that the resulting photos would look uncomfortable and stiff.