Ma: The Void That Makes Your Photos Unforgettable There's a Japanese concept that explains why your best photographs are the emptiest ones — and Western photography has no word for it. It's called Ma (間), the art of negative space, and it reveals that a photograph is the only art form that is both space and time at once. In this video we trace Ma and yohaku-no-bi (the beauty of empty space) from Japanese and Chinese ink painting — sumi-e, Hasegawa Tōhaku, Qi Baishi — to the way you compose a frame today. You'll learn void-and-substance (kyojitsu), how to "plan the white as the black" (keihaku-tōkoku), and how to use negative space and timing to make quieter, more powerful images. This is the first in a series on the ideas hidden inside Japanese aesthetics, and how they change the way we see. L’espace entre : le ma en photographie Il existe en japonais un mot pour une partie de nos photographies que personne ne nous a appris à voir. Ce n’est pas le sujet, ...
