Exploring Space

A blog post that I read (but forgot to bookmark) recommended giving yourself small assignments when shooting events. One of the suggestions was trying to have more than 50% of a given composition contain negative space. It’s been a fun, challenging, and rewarding exercise so far. Using so much negative space does, however, go against one of the main tenets of sports photography.

Any tutorial, video, or cheat sheet for sports photography emphasizes filling the frame. As a novice photographer, intentionally shooting wide was a way for me to compensate for mistakes I knew I was making. There wasn’t any true negative space in the raw versions of those images. I was shooting wide as means of ensuring my subject was in the frame. My thought process was “don’t worry, we’ll fix it in post.” In other words, it was a game of nailing the subject in-camera and creating a composition in lightroom. Shooting with the intention of creating negative space has required a completely different thought process.

Using negative space in portrait or landscape compositions seems relatively easy compared to doing so during a game. The principles are the same but I’m trying to apply them to a dynamic scene. I’m starting to learn to let the game come to me instead of trying to force something. It’s requiring me to mentally set traps like a hunter, then wait for the game to flow into the composition.

I’ve definitely become a fan of creating little tasks for myself while I’m shooting. Having assignments within an assignment has absolutely helped me stay more engaged and I think I’ve become less likely to press the shutter out of boredom. It’s also more stimulating and less anxiety-inducing than telling myself I need to walk away with at least one shot for my portfolio. The best part is that I don’t realize that I’m working on it while I’m shooting. It’s as if my brain kind of gets out of the way for a few minutes, then leaves some really cool images on my memory cards while I was gone.