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What to leave out

Lesson 3 of 27 in Composition and layout.

What is Negative Space? Why It Matters in Art, Design, and Photography · Dans Le Gris

Lesson

Two thirds of the sheet is nothing, and that is why it reads.

The same element crowded, then given room.

A photographer behind a camera looks at a single bottle on white paper while an assistant carries away a fern, cloth, pebbles and a crate. — An assistant carries the props away until one bottle stands alone on bare paper. Taking away the background usually makes a product picture read faster.

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Question 1, locked
A Kalighat painter works fast, with no underdrawing. How does the painting show the roundness of an arm?
- With careful cross-hatching along the outer edge
- With a cast shadow falling on the floor below
- With a single grey stroke along the inside edge
- With layers of colour blended into a gradient
Question 2, locked
Two posters both have blank backgrounds. One reads as confident and the other as unfinished. What makes the difference, according to the lesson?
- Whether the blank area is white or a coloured field
- Whether the figure now carries everything that matters
- Whether the blank area covers more than half the sheet
- Whether the figure sits in the centre of the page
Question 3, locked
You realise you could add a small detail to the empty space without making the picture any worse. What does the lesson say that tells you?
- The space is not doing work yet
- The picture is ready to go to print
- The detail should be added at once
- The figure needs to be made smaller

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