negativity is often thought to be a bad thing but really is it I mean if you
didn't have a negative terminal on your battery of your car wouldn't start in
the morning you'd be late for work your boss would sack you if they weren't
negative temperatures I wouldn't be able to enjoy a lovely ice-cream like this on
a sunny day and if you didn't have negative space in photography you
wouldn't be able to enjoy pictures like this all this all this yeah thanks so
what is this negative space thing how does it actually work and what subjects
does it work for these are all questions I get asked quite a lot well as you've
seen in those photos just now you can use negative space with people you can
use it with landscapes you can use with all sorts of things so probably the best
thing to do is for us to go and have a little one around and see if we can find
a couple of negative space shots somewhere a little bit quieter and I can
explain how it all works here's a lovely piece of negative space I know you've
got a lap stone work and you've got the graphic element of the bench down here
at the bottom hmm I think that works really really well it's a nice quiet
sort of an image the stones are all sort of higgledy-piggledy and lights changing
but with the sun shining across them you've got the shadows and then you've
got the graphic square straight lines of the bench down here so that's a great
piece of negative space we can use it by placing someone into it or just as it is
I think it would work really really well as an image it's a shame about this fire
hydrant sign we've got just here but that's what's photo that's what
Photoshop is for you can remove things like that but also you could just put a
person in front of it so if you were out doing a fashion shoot type of a thing
you can always put someone in front of that or a portrait and all of a sudden
you've lost the hydrant and you've just got a nice sort of a portrait a picture
and it's quiet and it's got space in it now I know you're saying but Mike you're
really really tiny in the picture we can't really see you but that's the
point human beings are really quite vain our eyes are drawn to human beings and
so you will look straight to me this was an image you were going to
print and put large on the wall it'll look absolutely fantastic because the
fact that I'm small and it occupies a big space it gives it a really quiet
peaceful sort of a nature so the things to look for are stuff like big open
spaces graphic elements they work really really well and they give you this
lovely quiet peaceful sort of an image let's just have a quick look and see
what it would look like if we cropped this shot in tight so that I am filling
the frame from sort of top to bottom see what that would look like so even though
this is still a really nice image because of the human shape the contrast
with the stone and then the graphic of this bench it's a much much tighter it's
much more portrait II rather than sort of scenery ish I kind of miss the big
open space even though this still looks really rather good let's just let it
breathe again and go back ah there we go I can breathe again I do just like this
sort of empty spacious quiet sort of a feeling I don't even like being in a
small room with the door closed so this is a bit of me so without further ado
let's go and get a camera and go and see if we can find some little things I'll
just talk you through how to shoot a bit of negative space with your camera
negative space isn't just for big open spaces such as boats on the water or a
tree on a hilltop you can use it for much smaller more delicate items as well
I kind of like these little flowers sitting here in the stonework I think
they look amazing I love the little ly lucky color going on against the sort of
grey of the stone so how do we go about it well the first thing you got to do is
to find yourself some of these little flowers that have got a bit of space
around them I mean these ones aren't much use at all are they because they're
all sort of bummed up they've got other flowers all around them
lastly things driving me nuts anyway I kind of like these ones just here you
see this little clump of flowers here they're all on their own to fly up there
there we go these ones they're all on their own down
here we've got plenty of space all around them now these
flowers here they're not going to be in the shop because you can use your focal
length a little bit longer and just kind of crop them away there's plenty of
space there so the shot I'm thinking about in my head isn't a landscape view
like we did down there with the bench this is an upright shot so we're going
to have the flowers small at the bottom and then we're going to give them space
to breathe up above and I think I'm just going to have them fairly central but
right down near the bottom with lots of space up here so let's go through it
with the camera how do we set this shot up we'll think about it the first thing
is do you need lots of depth of field no of course you don't
there isn't any depth going on here you've got what the front of the flowers
there and the stonework may be an inch behind them so you only need a little
tiny bit of depth of field so you don't need a little tiny aperture but I would
go for a middle aperture if you can I'm going to shoot this using aperture
priority because I just find it so much easier so I've got the camera switched
on I've got my white balance sector well actually sunny because it's kind of
sunny even though I'm in shade I could put it in shady but I'd rather color
correct it afterwards aperture I'm more interested in the composition and that
will then to start give me my aperture so I can get the
shutter speed so let's have a look at my composition and look through the camera
I can just sort of move backwards and forwards I want the lens long ish I've
got a 60 millimeter focal length set on a DX sensor for those of you who are
going to worry about that sort of thing just move your focal length until it
looks right don't start wearing about the numbers too much okay that's nice
that's nice and they come back a bit more I think try and give it some more
space here we go and that little blaze of color against the stones going to
really work okay so now I've looked at that I now know that I need about a
sixtieth a sorry a sixty millimeter focal length so I'm going to need at
least a sixtieth of a second shutter speed to ensure that I don't get camera
shake and a blurry picture so looking through the viewfinder I can see that F
5.6 I've got 100 if I mm 6.3 gives me an 80th I'm going to go with 6.3 that gives
me an 80th of a second I'm the shutter speed is going to be fast
enough to freeze the movement of the camera so I can get the shot nice and
sharp there we go I so I have got set at a 250 if I went down a little bit sure
the image quality bit better but my shutter speed would be a little bit
slower and I don't want that to happen so I'm all set up and ready to take the
shot so the settings are a sunny white balance 250 iso my exposure is an 80th
of a second at F 6.3 now I just kind of move the camera around out to put it in
position if I just look at it how I see the world with my eyes there right in
the middle like that it's really boring isn't it so I just look at it with it in
the middle and then tilt the front of the camera up it's this up tilt motion
like that and that moves my little flowers to the bottom I have put my
single point autofocus at the bottom of the frame so that it's going to focus on
the flowers when I press the shutter button
so I'm now lining it up single point autofocus press the shutter there's a
little beep it's focused squeeze the shot and there you go
it really is that simple now that's a nice delicate little sort of an example
why don't we go out and see if we can find a larger more open space and I'll
talk you through one of those shots as well we were just driving along to our
final location where I wanted to show you a final shot when I spotted that
crane up on the skyline up there you have imagine what it's like we all on
your own up on top of a tower crane it's a great opportunity for a little bit of
negative space now you see these boat masts they're a little bit annoying
because they're near the bottom of the crane so you need to think two things
here one raise yourself up so that we can make the masts appear lower and also
this has to be shot while the Sun is against the crane it's the light that's
going to make it work so I need to get my skates on
so get higher up I'm going to climb up on top of this bit of wall here come
with me and there we go that's better already
now what's the shot again I don't need loads of depth-of-field
all I need is a fairly flat depth of field I'm gonna use a middle aperture of
about f/8 I'm still using actually priority I'm just going to slide up the
shop and out the way here we go focus on the crane and then with making little
movements of the zoom to sort of crop out the tops of the mast while the Sun
is still out we put this stupid red balloon here here we go
right focus on the crane raise the camera up a little bit and we've just
got crane against the sky waiting for a seagull to get out of the shot because I
don't want him in there go away seagull there it is like that
awesome that's a really lonely up in the sky kind of a shot maybe a crane driver
feels like that I don't know but it's a bit of negative space see if we can find
that last shot I was on about I do seem to like a sturdy bench don't I this is
sort of turning into the Mike likes a sturdy bench show there's a reason I'm
here and I'll tell you that in a minute but first let's just revisit a few
negative space images think of a sunset now a sunset is probably negative space
in its most original form because are you actually photographing the Sun or
are you photographing the space around it all those magical colors going on in
the sky and the clouds if you didn't have the space around the Sun you
wouldn't be able to capture them and it probably wouldn't work quite so well
this picture of a little girl lying on the step of the beach hut now I could
have come in much much tighter onto Leila but then it would just have been a
likeness of Leila but by giving her some negative space and including a little
bit of the structure of the beach hut the sort of regularity of the straight
lines it's kind of confined Leila within her own childish ideas and dreams and
thoughts it's giving her that space which makes the picture quiet which is
what Leila was being at that moment and let's just go back to this one again the
one with the two little boats on the water this is one of my favorite
is actually the original shot which I took looked like this now as you can see
the masked in the background are a terrible distraction
I wanted this image to be a quiet peaceful image because it was so quiet
down there and I just loved the reflection of the little boats in the
water but the masks in the background they just kind of made it noisy and it
didn't need to have the sky included so by tilting the camera down a little bit
managed to lose that noise and put the boats at the top and now it is very very
quiet and peaceful indeed it's also notable because of the composition the
boats are at the top not the bottom I love this picture quite a few people
have said to me it's weird because the sky is in the wrong place that's also
another lesson to be had in the fact that there isn't really a right or a
wrong composition there's the one that you like and if you like it it's
brilliant and that one's brilliant as far as I'm concerned so what am I doing
here well the original plan was that we'd have some sunlight going on and I
was thinking about the background the sea the sky and the bench in the
foreground and I wanted to show you another little thing with this as well
but of course best laid plans of mice and men we've got a bit of Merc now but
never mind let's go ahead I'm going to set the shot up and we'll have a look at
it let's see what's going to happen okay so we've got our shot set up we've got
our bench we've got lots of empty space so that's the beginning isn't it but
think about where you position things I know we've been through it but it
doesn't hurt to just kind of look at this once again I think this shot will
work an awful lot better if we've got the bench lower in the frame now in the
original idea with the Sun was out you'll be able to see the horizon be
able to see the sea bear to see a lot more of the sky
it might just about glimpse out actually in a minute there are a few breaks in
the clouds and if it does I'm going to have to be fast so I'll talk you through
this bit now and then hopefully we'll get the shot in a minute so let's have a
look at the shot again by putting the bench lower and lining up the horizon
with the seat at the bottom let's see what that looks like I'll get out the
way first so that you can compare it
so there we go we've now got the composition reset we've moved the bench
slightly closer into the middle of the picture which is something which you'll
probably think you're was telling us not to do also when you're working with
negative space it is often a lot nicer to have something much lower down in the
frame you can put it near the top like we did with the boats excuse me that
works brilliantly so what have we got going on here we've got the grass down
the bottom if you can see through the murk the horizon is running just above
the top of the bench probably round about here the reason you want to be
careful with things like that is if the horizon line collides with this harsh
line of the bench somehow it just doesn't work quite so well you need that
little piece of separation to keep it going if we have the Sun out it would be
absolutely glorious because we've got some lovely textures in the sky but it's
just not going to happen I don't think but this is good for you this will help
you imagine things so if I was going to take this picture what kind of exposure
would I use and the reason I'm saying that is because I know a lot of you
would ask the correct exposure is the one that works for where you are I can't
tell you what exposure to use because I don't know the light situation if the
Sun was shining right now it would be a very very different experience it would
be a very very different exposure all you need is a middle aperture because
whoa there is no well there is a lot of depth of field but if you're a fair
distance away your depth of field will be big anyway you didn't cite your
sexual shutter speed according to the aperture that you've chosen and then you
set your ISO according to the shutter speed that you get because you want to
make sure your shutter speed is fast enough that you don't get camera shake
if you're not using a tripod these are the building blocks of photography they
kind of clunk together like Lego bricks and by understanding what they do you
can kind of build your own picture in your head and then create your camera
settings something that works really really well
when you do have a bit of a dull scene like this is to introduce something
man-made into it because it gives your eye
somewhere to look it gives you a point of focus if you like
particularly if it's something with a nice bright vivid color so all I can say
to you is Aubry stops blowing the blasted thing goes up right but enjoy
the view
you