Negative Space

[Bob Carnie]

I am going to be visiting a University Photography program to judge a students project on Negative Space in a couple of weeks.
I think of Avedon's use of negative space in his fashion portraits.
He seemed to surround his subjects wonderfully with bold whites surrounding luscious clothing and garmets and to me a good example of using the background indoors and outdoors.

Any other photographers work that you can think of that use negative space to create a wonderful image.??

***I do remember someone posting on this site a cloud formation that resembled an object, but to me it looked altered and not a natural composition, I would like to be proven wrong as it would then be incredible.***

any help would be appreciated

 

[Jan Pietrzak]

Bob,

NO TAN by, Dorr Bothwell the best $10.00 or $12.00 you will spend

Dorr was an instructor at Ansels workshops in the 70's

Jan Pietrzak

 

[David William White]

ralph gibson

 

[keithwms]

Steichen comes to mind. Minor White. Newman maybe. Let's see.. more recently, I was introduced to Sarah Moon and there is one photogrpah in particular which I find extremely effective in this regard, The Juggler, Circus (2002). She uses very stark black spaces in many mages, which set off the colours and subjects very well.

I am really big on negative space myself, and though I doubt I am the person you refer to with the cloud, I have gotten various inquiries about this shot and how I "did" it. (Some people see a downwards facing horse...) Anyway I won't argue about the effectiveness of the negative space, it's what I wanted and that's that I use lots of negative space sometimes... a lot of people do. 'Nothing' can add balance.

 

[Toffle]

Not to be fishing too close to home, but our own Bill Schwab came to mind the second I read your question. He has a great knack for surrounding his subjects with a whole lot of useful "nothing".

 

[Bob Carnie]

I must be daft.
I have three of Bills on display in our gallery right now..

Keith , great images, but not the ones, I think Ralph L was looking at these and asking who the artist was.

Keep all the stuff coming

Not to be fishing too close to home, but our own Bill Schwab came to mind the second I read your question. He has a great knack for surrounding his subjects with a whole lot of useful "nothing".

 

[Vaughn]

Brett Weston comes first to my mind -- I have always appreciated his use of black areas (negative space) as part of his composition.

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[jp80874]

Bob,

Interesting thread.

Bill Brandt. Most of the pictures in this Limited Editions group.

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John Powers

 

[SuzanneR]

Along the same lines as Avedon, Irving Penn was a master at it. And agree, Arnold Newman is one to look at. Edward Weston, Paul Strand, and Robert Mapplethorpe are three more I think used negative space very well.

 

[John Koehrer]

Edw. Weston, especially in his non-commercial portrait work. and ManRay.

 

[el wacho]

regarding the cloud photo, shomei tomatsu's photo comes to mind...

 

[Tony Egan]

Michael Kenna who was influenced by Brandt and many of those in turn influenced by Kenna. No names come immediately to mind but I recall looking at the work of Japanese photographers over the years who used negative space very powerfully.
Also in terms of a very well known image, I've always thought Moonrise, Hernandez was a great example of using negative space to create a strong sense of scale in the landscape.