Bill,
That's exactly why I asked the question to get insight into what you didn't like as I believe, as has been stated here that its the use of the lens, or possibly the lens design, by Chuck Close, not the length of the lens in and of itself. At least my experience with a shorter lens on the big format (I've been shooting 20 x 24 for close to a decade, both wet plate collodion and film for PT/PD gum over output) and NONE of my pictures, every bit as close up and one to one as those shown in the link by Chuck Close have big distorted noses. Wisner wrote an article that I'm sure is out there on the web somewhere that discussed this phenomenon in detail about how you don't get the distortion in larger formats that you do in smaller format with short focal length lenses. For example here is a one to one portrait of my son when he was much smaller, four years old to be exact shot on 20 x 24 Ilford FP4 with a Schneider 550XL. I often show this example mainly because digitizing my 20 x 24 isn't worth the cost it takes to do it, and I'm such a lousy digital copy photographer they always come out looking worse for wear. I have examples that are even bigger than one to one shot with that lens and still no distortion. As stated by others it seems to clearly be a choice by Close. Like you I wouldn't choose that for my sitters but hell I can't even pay for digitizing my 20 x 24's with the sales of my work (you can read into that there are no sales of my work!!!) so given the choice of aesthetic's most would be wise to side with Chuck over Monty.
Interesting discussion that I have enjoyed following.
thanks
Monty
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