10 Excellent Photos That Show You How Negative Space Can be Used Effectively for a Great Composition

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Negative space is the area that surrounds the main object in a photo, and can be utilized as a composition tool to convey sizes and shapes more effectively. It is a concept that has been used in art, design and architecture for a very long time, and is equally useful in photography. Using negative space can help you capture simple yet powerful images that stand out.

Negative space establishes and emphasizes the main subject (called the ‘positive space') of your image and draws the viewer's eyes to it, making it a more engaging composition. This post is a collection of photographs that use negative space to this effect. We hope that they inspire you to explore negative space as a composition tool and create some great photographs of your own.

If you'd like to get better at photographic composition and learn concepts that go beyond the basics, take a look at Kent DuFault's guide on advanced composition, but for now let's sit back and enjoy these photographs.

Photo by Thomas Leth-Olsen
Photo by Armando Maynez
Photo by Jonathan Kos-Read
Photo by Thomas Leuthard
Photo by Karen Borter
Photo by Matt McGee
Photo by Vinoth Chandar
Photo by Luis Alejandro Bernal
Photo by Federico Alegría

Improve Your Photography Composition

If you would like to improve your photography composition and learn concepts that go beyond the basics, we recommend Photzy’s best-selling guide Advanced Composition for an in-depth training on the subject. With this guide, you will learn how to see light, shadow, lines, curves, repetition, juxtaposition and much more, and also develop the skills of anticipation, pre-visualization and timing. Click here now to check it out.

About Author

Ritesh has been photographing since 2010 and his photographic interests have varied from nature and landscapes to street photography. You can see his photography on Flickr or on his website.

Interesting. I especially like the one by Matt McGee. Its almost unreal to the point that it feels artificial. Negative space is something that I am obsessed with and always take great interest in. I believe that it can change the way we look at photographs. Thanks for listing these.

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