Negative Space

In my quest to improve my photography skills I stumbled upon a fantastic site, Digital Photography School where I found a forum that offers a weekly challenge. I'm all about challenges and critiques, I've certainly done my fair share of them when I was a student. This week's challenge was "Negative Space" which is something I haven't really explored with my photography. Mostly I like to take candid photos of my children, attempt something akin to portrait photography, and kind of like taking photos of food that makes my mouth water. All of those things rely heavily on focusing on a subject. Negative space focuses on the space around the subject which is a different matter entirely.

Since David has the car today the kids and I walked to Indoor Park this morning and I threw my camera bag in the stroller with everything else. As we walked I kept my eyes peeled for photo opportunities that showcased negative space and found a few, mostly bare tree branches against the sky and fences. It was when we got home and I was in the kitchen that a crystal pitcher caught my eye. Aha! I grabbed a black sweatshirt for a quick background and took a few pictures. Then I remembered the crystal decanter in the closet and noticed that the way the kitchen was lit the red wall provided a nice dark background. Bingo.

Tree branch silhouetted by the sky.


On the way home I noticed this white picket fence made some great shadows!

The Levens Street Bridge

Wine decanter, getting closer...

My submission to the Negative Space Assignment