Springtime, where are you? I sit here waiting for your warm glorious rays of sunshine to wash over me, to bring me out of this gloomy winter. But it’s like I’m sitting here alone at a table for two and you’re the date that stands me up.
It’s April and I’m supposed to be in sandals and sundresses, not still bundled up in scarves and sweaters.
Come on Springtime, don’t leave me hanging.
Negative space. The area surrounding the main subject, the positive space, in photography and art. Negative space is an effective technique used to draw one’s eye and focus toward the main subject. But negative space is just as important in giving a photo, or any piece of art, some “breathing room.” Your eyes need a place to rest in a composition and negative space is what keeps an image from being cluttered with too many unnecessary elements. When used effectively, negative space makes the overall image stronger and more powerful.
Is it like this in life as well? Have our modern lifestyles become so consumed with the need to “have it all” that we no longer leave room for negative space, for breathing room, for rest? Even though it’s that breathing room that actually makes us stronger, happier, more productive.
Sometimes I feel like I’m living inside a photograph cluttered with too many distracting elements and clutter, there’s no negative space, and therefore, no understanding of where to focus. As Tony Robbins says:
One reason so few of us achieve what we truly want is that we never direct our focus; we never concentrate our power. Most people dabble their way through life, never deciding to master anything in particular.
That’s me. Dabbler. Jack of all trades, master of none. I’m feeling the need to focus and recompose, adding a bit of negative space back into the picture.
How do you create negative space in life in order to focus on and strengthen the positive?.
This is where I sit and do my work, my office. The view ahead a catalog of sustenance. Coffee maker. Oven. Refrigerator. And I sit here on a bar stool desperately in need of a healthy dose of WD-40 to keep it from making an infernal squeaking noise every time I even breathe. Either that or one day I may throw it out the window. Squeak. Squeak. Squeak. As if the tinnitis in my left ear wasn’t enough drive me mad.
One of the things I’ve really embraced here in the UK are these huge charity events, Comic Relief and Sport Relief, where the whole nation gets involved. I’ve never seen anything like this in the US, where everywhere you turn there are celebrities doing extreme challenges, fundraisers at schools, banners at shops, and programs on radio and TV. It’s just really refreshing to see so many people coming together for something so positive.
So today, in honor of Red Nose Day, we’ve got our red noses on. Why not head on over to find out what it’s all about and donate.
The greatest magnifying glasses in the world are a man’s own eyes when they look upon his own person.
Alexander Pope