One rule of image composition involves the positive and negative space included in a photograph. Positive space represents the subject and/or (other) important elements in a photograph. Negative space represents the background, the out-of-focus part of an image.

The positive-to-negative space ratio may vary, depending on the subject, story, and the type of photography.

For example:

• In a headshot, the subjects covers most of the frame, hence, the positive/negative space ratio can be approx. seventy percent (70%).

• In a landscape or an image that’s to be used in editorials or, even better, promotional photography, the positive/negative space ratio is oftentimes smaller. That means, there’s more negative space, otherwise called copy space pr space for copy, for editors and art directors to add text–quotes, titles, messages, etc.

If life were a photograph, then it would be a live, ever changing photograph. Its positive-to-negative space ratio would vary over the years, based on the important people, spaces, buildings, dreams, ideas and ideals that appear or disappear from our life.

Oftentimes, losing someone or something leaves behind a deep and dark negative space, an emptiness that’s difficult to fill with words or thoughts. All that we’re left, after such a loss, are then-and-now photographs and memories.

Today is Tuesday, September 10, 2024. It’s a sunny, clear and crisp day, and debate night here, in the U.S.. Tomorrow is yet another 9/11 anniversary, commemoration.

On that Tuesday in September, the 9/11 attacks chanced the NYC skyline forever, adding unwanted negative space. And they changed many people’s lives forever, too. And nowadays, although the Freedom Tower stands tall, almost adjacent to the 9/11 Memorial in Lower Manhattan, the skyline is not the same. It will never be the same. We’re left with then-and-now, before-and-after images of it.

I wish you all a wonderful Tuesday and rest of the week.

As always, thanks for stopping by,

Alina Oswald

PS: Losing someone or something, losing our freedoms and liberties can skew the skyline of our life for generations to come, leaving many of us only with before-and-after, then-and-now images and memories, what we once had, and what there is no more….