Negative space

Learning goal

You will be able to see the emptiness in a frame not as a gap to be filled, but as a part that joins in the photograph's meaning. You will tell apart the positive space the subject takes up from the negative space around it; you will explain why the emptiness needs to be plain and unbroken to separate the subject from the background; you will try out how the proportion between subject and emptiness tends to add a feeling to the frame; you will see how a wide emptiness misleads the exposure; and you will photograph a person left small inside the emptiness deliberately as a silhouette or as a readable face, on every skin, and be careful when attaching a feeling to them.

The question

In the late afternoon you go back to the same tea garden. The chairs have been stacked away, the garden has emptied. The man who was reading a newspaper in the morning is sitting alone this time at the last table on the shore; in front of him the sea stretching to the horizon, above him a sky turning pale pink. When you photograph the man close enough to fill the frame, you get an ordinary portrait. When you step back and leave him as a small figure in the bottom corner of the frame, though, almost all of the frame is sea and sky; the frame goes quiet.

Can emptiness be a subject too? The empty area around a photograph's subject is usually where the photographer struggles to fit things in. But when that area is left empty, it can be part of what the photograph says. In this lesson we will talk about negative space, how it is built, and what to watch for when placing a person inside the emptiness.

Context

In the foundations of composition, we learned to leave space in the direction a person is looking and to keep the background plain; these were the first examples of emptiness serving the subject. In the previous lesson, on the other hand, we worked with patterns that fill the frame: repeating shapes covered every corner of the frame. Negative space is the exact opposite kind of order: a large part of the frame contains almost nothing, and the subject stands as a small shape inside this emptiness.

This approach is one way of building a minimal composition, and it doesn't suit every photograph. A frame that wants to tell the energy of a crowded market doesn't need emptiness. But when you want to bring forward a silence, a distance, or the shape of a subject, emptiness can be one of the most direct tools for it.

Simple explanation

What are positive and negative space?

In a frame, the area taken up by the subject and the elements that draw attention is called positive space, and the empty or plain area around them is called negative space. Negative space isn't a place where there is nothing; it can be a sky, a sea, a wall, a blanket of snow, a fog or a flat beach. What makes it negative is that it lacks details that would pull the gaze to themselves, and that it is unbroken.

The viewer's telling a subject apart from the background is called figure-ground separation. When the negative space is plain, this separation becomes easier: the subject reads as a sharp shape against the emptiness around it. When the negative space is cluttered, for example when a post, a sign or a crowd enters the emptiness, the gaze is split between the subject and these elements, and the emptiness loses its effect. That is why, when building negative space, you look carefully not only at the subject but at the emptiness itself too.

What does proportion change?

How much the subject fills the frame tends to add a different feeling to the frame. If the subject fills the frame, the viewer stands close to it and looks at its details. When the subject stays small inside a wide emptiness, on the other hand, most viewers feel a distance, a silence, sometimes a loneliness or a calm. The same person, the same place; when only the proportion changes, the photograph starts to say something different.

Where the subject sits in the emptiness matters too. A small figure standing in the middle spreads the emptiness equally on both sides and tends to build a still order. A figure standing near a corner, on the other hand, gathers the emptiness in one direction; if the figure is looking or walking, an expectation forms in the frame when this emptiness opens in their direction. To try out proportion and position, stepping back, moving closer or changing the focal length is enough; with each try you look at what the emptiness does to the subject.

How does emptiness affect exposure?

A wide negative space is often the biggest part of the frame, and the camera's metering takes it as the basis. If a bright sky, a whitewashed facade or a blanket of snow covers the frame, the meter darkens it toward middle gray, and the small subject darkens along with it. If a dark sea or a dark wall covers the frame, the meter opens it up and the subject can stay too bright. The color and brightness of the emptiness also decide the feeling: a white emptiness tends to look light and airy, a dark emptiness heavy and dense.

That is why exposure is a decision in frames with negative space. You can deliberately turn the subject into a silhouette in front of a bright sky, or build the exposure for the subject's face and accept that the sky opens up. On a snowy hill, raising the exposure keeps the emptiness white. On both paths, instead of accepting as it is the setting the camera gave for the emptiness, you need to look at the histogram and a test frame.

What gets attached to a person in the emptiness?

A person left small inside a wide emptiness often reads as a silhouette. In front of a bright sky a dark-skinned person quickly turns into a silhouette; in front of a dark sea, a light-skinned person can turn white if the exposure is built for the sea. A silhouette hides a person's face and identity and reduces them to a shape; sometimes this is exactly what is wanted, and sometimes you need to show that person's face. Deciding which you want and building the exposure accordingly means not leaving the result to chance.

Emptiness easily stirs a feeling in the viewer, and this feeling can be attached to the person in the photograph. A man sitting alone by the sea can look lonely and sad in the photo; whereas maybe he is just enjoying the evening cool. Showing a person as a small figure inside the emptiness is telling a story about them. When building this story, especially in the photograph's caption or in the words you write when sharing it, you need to be careful not to load onto that person a feeling that isn't theirs.

Visual evidence

You go back to the late-afternoon garden. You step back with a wide-angle lens and place the dark-skinned man, his hat on his head, in the bottom left corner of the frame. The rest of the frame is a calm pink and blue sky and a silvery sea; the horizon is on the bottom third line. The camera meters for the sky and leaves the man as a dark silhouette: his hat, his shoulders and the slim glass in his hand are a single dark shape.

In this frame you keep the silhouette's silence. Then, to see his face too, in one frame you take the man's face as the basis and open the exposure a stop and a half; the sky turns a light pink, but the orange of the last sun on his cheek and his thoughtful eyes can be made out. After shooting you talk with the man; he says he sits here every evening and watches the ferries, and that this is his favorite hour of the day. In the photo's caption you write not "loneliness," but "a man waiting for the evening ferries." The same emptiness; what gave it meaning was the photographer's knowledge and the words they chose.

Common mistakes

Summary

Negative space is the plain and unbroken emptiness around the subject; it makes figure-ground separation easier, and the proportion between subject and emptiness tends to add feelings such as distance, silence or calm to the frame. The emptiness shouldn't be cluttered and shouldn't mislead the exposure: a bright emptiness darkens the subject, a dark emptiness opens it up. A person in the emptiness is photographed, on every skin, as a deliberate silhouette or a readable face, and a feeling that isn't theirs isn't loaded onto them through a caption or a post.

Mini assignment

In this assignment you will use emptiness deliberately.

1. Photograph a subject first close enough to fill the frame, then as a small shape inside a wide, plain emptiness.
2. Photograph the same subject placed in the middle of the emptiness and in one of its corners; compare how the emptiness is spread.
3. Photograph a subject in front of a bright sky or a white wall, first with the camera's metering, then building the exposure for the subject.
4. If you photograph a person inside the emptiness, talk with them after shooting and give the photo a caption that reflects something you know about them.

Check yourself

• As the subject got smaller, did the frame stir a different feeling in you?
• Was there a cluttered element entering the emptiness, and how did you take it out?
• Were you able to photograph the person in the emptiness as you wanted, as a silhouette or a readable face, regardless of skin tone?

Glossary

Mini quiz

1. What makes negative space negative?

• A) That it is always black
• B) That it lacks details that would draw the gaze, and is unbroken
• C) That it is the smallest part of the frame
• D) That it is blurry

2. What happens when a post or a sign enters the negative space?

• A) The emptiness becomes more effective
• B) The exposure improves
• C) The gaze is split between the subject and these elements, and the emptiness loses its effect
• D) The emptiness looks plainer

3. If a bright sky covers most of the frame, what does the camera's metering tend to do to the small subject?

• A) It darkens it
• B) It opens it up
• C) It blurs it
• D) It doesn't change it

4. If you want to show the face of a dark-skinned person left small in front of a bright sky, what do you do?

• A) Accept the camera's metering as it is
• B) Change the white balance
• C) Lay the man on the ground to take him out of the sky
• D) Build the exposure for the face and accept that the sky opens up

Answers

1. B — Negative space isn't empty; it is a plain and unbroken area that doesn't pull the gaze to itself.
2. C — Elements entering the emptiness split the gaze; figure-ground separation weakens.
3. A — While the meter darkens the wide bright area to middle gray, it darkens the small subject too.
4. D — If a readable face is wanted instead of a silhouette, the exposure is built for the face; the sky stays lighter.

Summary card

• Negative space: the plain, unbroken emptiness around the subject.
• When the emptiness is plain, the subject separates sharply from the background; clutter spoils it.
• Proportion changes the feeling: a small subject, a wide emptiness; these are tendencies, not firm laws.
• Emptiness misleads exposure: silhouette or face, decide.
• Expose deliberately for the person in the emptiness on every skin; don't load a feeling onto them that isn't theirs.

Bridge to the next lesson

In the late-afternoon frame, the man, the sea and the sky stood on the same plane, like a flat curtain. Imagine photographing the same place with a rope on the shore or the bow of a rowboat in front, and an island on the horizon behind: the frame separates into several layers, and the viewer's gaze moves from front to back. How does a photograph gain depth? The next lesson talks about the foreground, middle ground and background layers.