Examples of strong contrast and positive/negative space relationship

First one is an English/American artist Clare Leighton. She is mostly famous for her wood engravings. She has illustrated many books. Also, a lot of her works picture everyday life of factory workers, fishers, farmers, good old people who work on the land. I discovered her amazing work at Dixon Gallery (by the way her exhibition is still on: http://www.gomemphis.com/news/2010/jul/09/painstaking-images-on-wood/, go see it!!)

Her prints are very intricate and sophisticated. I can't imagine how much time and skill it would take! Also, the whole process of wood engraving makes the artist to think of positive and negative, black and whites in a kinda backwards way, because places you don't touch will remain black, the places that you cut most will be the whitest. It's the same principle as in charcoal erasure technique.

Next artist is Felix Vallotton, a Swiss painter and printmaker. He was an important figure in the development of the modern woodcut. His reductive woodcuts have really sharp blacks and whites, and are really good examples of contrast and dynamic between positive and negative space.

I really like this one's composition and the idea:

The last guy is a contemporary photographer Rodney Smith ( http://www.rodneysmith.com/)

I really like his compositions and subjects of his photos. He works a lot in black and white photography. Here are some of his photos:

This one's composition is simply brilliant and it looks almost surreal, interesting positive and negative shapes and lines, really good contrast: