The negative

I remember the first image that drew me into the idea of using negative space in children’s photography. It was a Kate T Parker image of her daughter against a purple bathroom wall and my heart skipped a beat.  The wall appeared huge and simple (negative space ) and the little girl and hand dryer tiny as can be ( positive space .) It made me want to be there, partially made me want to be that tiny fearless girl and mostly  made me want to be BFFs with her mom and photographer Kate. The image is vibrant, minimal, and yet captures girlhood perfectly.

Negative space is the empty portion of an image that draws you to the subject. For me, the larger the negative space the more impactful the subject becomes. Without distractions your mind instantly goes to the POSTIVE space, or subject, and gives power to what you’re presenting to your audience. The empty space provides the subject more room to breath and simply be.

The purple bathroom image was definitely an influence for a few sessions I took at my favorite colorful wall in southern Arizona. In this image below the negative space is the purple wall and ground below. It gives a cheerful-girly feel to the image and draws you directly to my sweet little friend carelessly dancing away.

Negative Space- Wall

Postive Space- Girl

Using negative space is a bit abstract and less appealing to some clients wanting to hang their perfectly posed family on the wall. A fun way I have tried to create negative space in images is to use the quiet landscape around us when possible in family sessions. I tend to be less dramatic as I would with my own personal images but here are a few examples.

There are a few ways to really create quality negative space in your images. I tend to shoot almost always with a 35mm lens on a full frame DSLR, but the wider you get with a lens the easier it is to capture the BIG picture . Another way to play with negative space is post processing. I tend to do this A LOT. Don’t be afraid of getting creative and cropping out portions of the image that are too busy and distract from the subject. Here is an example of an image that was dull and almost tossed but with the right crop and negative space balance it became one of my absolute favorites. ( Of course color correction too, I often underexpose in camera and bring everything to life through light room)

I tend to shoot much more negative space in my personal work . Drawing focus to the smallness of my kiddos and enormity of the world around them really captures the candid childhood.

 This last one is a DOUBLE negative ( ok,  sometimes I'm super cheesy) but the canvas in my daughters room is a perfect example of negative space. Her name in the tiny corner makes the purple itself take presence as the negative space, her name comes off more dramatic.  Then the image itself is as well with all the empty space behind her sweet little self. Ideally I would remove her mobile and step back even a bit further to add just a touch more space and simplicity to this image .

Just discussing this with you all here actually makes me WANT to go shoot more negative space, as much as I love to look at it I have definitely not been creating it enough.  Thanks for reading along people , I am completely self taught and sometimes feel like my knowledge base in technical photography is minimal. Hopefully you learned something here and apply it even if just with your iPhone images!  Show me your favorite photos of negative space and let's see what we can all create this week friends.