With all that said, I want to give you a few examples of images to let you see what I mean by negative space. Just like in composition, we want to give the eyes of the viewer a natural resting point. There's no need to pack a million things into the conversation just to avoid the dreaded silence. But with friends or long-time partners, silence is comfortable and can be a good time for reflecting on things that have just been said. If someone's on a first date, they often feel they have to keep the conversation rolling no matter what, lest their date think they're boring. If we use conversation as an analogy, think about periods of silence. This often leaves the frame far too busy and cluttered and can detract from the actual subject or even completely obscure it. We fear we might be missing something vital, so we pack as much in as we can. When we first begin our journeys into photography, we often see things in front of us and want to include them as much as we can. Sometimes, it's important to have multiple elements in the frame to express to the viewer your reasoned intent, but often, it's just as important to leave large parts of the frame empty to give your subject some breathing room and let it have more impact on the viewer. When we look through the viewfinder at a scene in front of us or look at an image on our computers before making post-production choices, we have to decide what we want in the frame and what we want to exclude from the frame.

What exactly is negative space? In short, it is deliberately opting to leave large parts of your frame devoid of strong compositional elements to help your subject stand out more. Too embarrassed to inquire further, I never could have imagined at the time that negative space is quite the misnomer, as, in reality, it can be a very good thing when used with both thought and intent. When I first heard someone discussing negative space with regards to compositional styles and components, my immediate position was to assume that it was something undesirable and a blight on an image.

Positive and negative space images