How to Use Negative Space in Landscape and Travel Photography

We’re often told to get in close and fill the frame, but what if we take a different approach? What happens when we step back and include negative space around the subject instead? You can use this composition technique to add depth and interest to your photos by giving the subject room to breathe.

It’s an interesting idea that’s best explored through examples. Below you can see six photos that use negative space, along with a cropped version that shows an alternative composition, to show you how it works. I’ve focused on landscape and travel photography as these are two popular genres of photography you may not associate with negative space.

Before we continue, it’s important to remember that these ideas are subjective. We all have different aims and aesthetic taste and you may prefer the cropped version in some of these examples. The aim isn’t to tell you what to do or set a rule. It’s to get you thinking about negative space, and how much of it you should or shouldn’t use in your photos.

A great way to learn is to make a variety of photos using different focal lengths to see which version is your favorite. Don’t be afraid to crop when you develop your photos either. The megapixel count is so high on many cameras that you have way more resolution than you need. If cropping improves the composition then go for it.

Negative space example #1: The Wanaka Tree, New Zealand

Below you can see a photo of New Zealand’s famous landmark the Wanaka tree. The empty sky and gray lake (smoothed out with a long exposure of 125 seconds) create negative space.

Negative space is effective when it gives the subject (in this case the tree) room to breathe and creates a sense of scale and distance.

In this case I got a little lucky. Normally you can see more mountains visible behind the tree. But it was raining, and this obscured most of the mountains in the distance and simplified the composition.

Now let’s pretend I had a telephoto zoom lens with me at the time and that I zoomed in and created a composition like this (achieved by cropping in Lightroom Classic).

Yes, the tree is bigger in the frame, and you could argue that I filled the frame more effectively, but something is lost. There’s no sense of space and distance. There’s nothing to show scale.

Negative space example #2: Tapu Te Ranga, Island Bay, New Zealand

Here’s another landscape photo that I made in New Zealand.

I framed it with the silhouetted island in the middle of the frame (left to right) and the sea at the bottom. The rest of the frame is occupied by the sky. I composed it like this to capture the movement of the emerging stars. The light trail over the island was made by a plane coming in to land nearby. I used a 180 second exposure to blur the sea and capture the star and light trails.

The use of negative space helps emphasize the island’s unique shape, the moody dusk lighting and the expanse of sea and sky.

Here’s a crop that shows the photo I could have made with a longer focal length. It’s not a bad photo, but it doesn’t have the same sense of depth and distance as the first.

Negative space example #3: Playa de la Arnia, Spain

Here’s another seascape, this time made in Spain.

This photo also uses a long exposure (180 seconds) to blur the sea and the movement of the clouds. I framed it to include lots of sea and a little of the sky to capture the movement of the waves around the rock stacks. The use of negative space shows the environment as well as the subject, and gives a sense of the immense scale of the sea.

Here’s what the photo looks like cropped. Without so much negative space, there’s more emphasis on the rock stacks and less on the sea.

As you can see each of the landscape photos shown here has a simplified, minimalist composition. They are not busy images, packed full of detail. They’re examples of how negative space and this style of landscape photography go together.

Negative space in travel photography

You can use negative space in a similar way in travel photography to give a sense of space and include subtle detail that improves the composition of your photos. Here are the examples.

Negative space example #4: Jing’an Temple, Shanghai, China

I made this photo in an old temple in Shanghai.

The Chinese character was on the side of a metal statue. I gave the photo plenty of negative space and included the metalwork at the bottom in the composition. The texture and color of the metal is beautiful and adds to the photo.

Here’s an alternative crop that shows the result if I’d used a longer focal length.

It’s a bold, dramatic composition. I like it. It still uses negative space, but not as much. But it tells you less about the statue, and doesn’t show the beautiful patina on the metal surface.

Negative space example #5: People’s Heroes Memorial Tower, Shanghai, China

The next photo isn’t your typical brightly colored travel photo. The building in the photo is a memorial on the bund in Shanghai. I liked the monument’s geometry and symmetry and made the graphic photo you see below, using the deep blue sky to create lots of negative space.

Here’s an alternative crop, without that vast expanse of sky.

The negative space in the first photo helps convey a sense of the scale of the monument against the sky. Negative space is also a crucial part of the photo’s balance. The smaller, nearly white monument visually balances the larger expanse of black. The cropped version is unbalanced. There’s too much building and not enough sky.

Negative space example #6: Paddle boarders, Devon, England

I made the last photo on a calm winter’s day in south Devon. The still sea created perfect conditions for paddleboarding.

The composition has plenty of negative space, mostly taken up by sea. It works because it shows distance and scale. The tiny figures emphasize the vastness of the sea and the way it stretches to the horizon.

What would have happened if I’d used a telephoto lens for a tighter crop? As you can see in the cropped version below, the photo loses that sense of distance and scale. The paddle boarders are bigger, but the sense of space, the spectacle of two people navigating the vastness of the sea on two pieces of floating plastic, is lost.

Summing up

I hope these examples have got you thinking about negative space and how you can use it in your landscape and travel photos. Don’t forget to experiment with your framing in-camera and cropping in developing to get the visual balance right.

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