Shooting wide angles from a distance is a bad idea because they will look very boring. Remember that wide angles make for dynamic pictures, so you really want to push in and show the details of things. Think about a lens that lets you show both the small details and the whole at once. That's a wide angle lens!

If you move in really close to an object, you can focus on a part of it but have the background still in the shot and smaller. Imagine shooting someone's finger huge in the foreground with their face in the background. Now that would be a cool shot! Or, imagine shooting a flower big in the frame with a building right behind it, looking really small. That's a cool shot too.

Getting close with a wide angle lens is a great way to get some really dynamic pictures. Wide-angle and fisheye lenses are some of the coolest lenses you can use.