Photos by Bryan Hansel via Flickr

A birch and mountain ash trees stand watch over Lake Superior. Grand Marais, Cook County, Minnesota.

I love these trees and often take pictures of them. I took this one yesterday, but I didn’t have a mid-range zoom with me, so I went back at sunset tonight to get another picture. Did I mention, I love this tree.

I’ve been thinking a lot about negative space in composition lately and trying to see negative space as shapes just as clearly as the shape formed by the tree. This has been a fun exercise that’s letting me see in new ways. I’m not sure that it has had an impact on my composition yet, but at least I’m starting to see it. Betty Edwards’ Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain has a great chapter on negative space that you should check out. It’s worth the trip to the library and the hour read and the days of thinking about it.

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