Positive shapes are the shapes of actual objects. Negative shapes are the areas between these objects. The way positive and negative shapes act together creates the atmosphere of a composition.

In Blackbird in Snow, the bird and branches take up positive space in the top half of the frame. The bottom half of the composition is almost entirely negative space. This creates a sense of ...

This in turn induces negative selection on the current form of the parasite while leading to positive selection of variants that cannot be recognized by the host. Furthermore, if such variant ...