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Perceptive Vision - Developing a Personal Style

Creating tension
Look to create tension in your images. Imagine a bow and arrow – when the bow sits unused, it is inert - it has no tension – an analogy with an art work points to an image which is "limp" - predictable and unchallenging

You need to bend the bow to fire the arrow to the target - when it reaches this point there is an elegance in the curve - it has a sense of poetry - and to create enough tension in an art work you need to push things find out where the limits are - give the work intensity – make it interesting and engaging. Look where the boundaries are where things fail and fall to pieces

However, if we bend the bow too much it breaks, so to discover where the fine line between elegantly taught and broken is - to acquire a refined sensitivity - we may need to break a few bows.

So don’t be frightened to experiment with you image making to discover where the breaking points are - where the boundaries are where things fail and fall to pieces. Experiment with all three areas – technically, aesthetically, and conceptually.

Push them around and discover where the tension is and where the breaking points are. Remember that most powerful tool you have is your imagination, and its good sign to have failures - to have a few broken stick in the corner of the room is a sign you are engaged in the work - an indication of your creative spirit pushing the boundaries..

Also note that the elegant curve and the breaking points are different for all of us.