
To me, composition tools, are recipes for composition. And even with a recipe, I can't make it as good as the cook at the restaurant. But just because I know I like Pho Noodle soup doesn't mean I can make it. Me liking that dish might be built into me, or it may be learned. I suspect that some composition rules are based off how our brains work, like feeling if something is balanced or not.
#Positive and negative space cutout complicated full#
Forbes starts with figure/ground relationships, and expands from that to explain how you create dynamism in a photograph, let your subject/figure breathe while drawing your viewers eye to that subject, and much much more.Ĭheck out the full episode below, and then share your favorite minimalist composition in the comments down in some ways I agree with what you say, and in some ways I don't. The episode was dug out of the archives by Fstoppers, and it was part of a larger series on composition, which is elaborated on in a blog Forbes was maintaining at the time called Composition Study.īut this episode in particular stands out, because it's one of the deeper video dives out there on the subject of simplicity, minimalism, and negative space. which is exactly what Ted Forbes did in this old episode of his aptly-titled YouTube channel The Art of Photography.


Composition is about a whole lot more than the 'rule of thirds' or the 'golden spiral.' If you really want to understand what makes a photograph stand out, you need to dive deeper into the art of photography and photo composition.
