Images as tools to stimulate creativity
Pictures are powerful tools in rousing one’s creativity.
It may be a picture seen online, or a group photo of family and friends, or paintings in a gallery, or drawings and sketches done by a friend or a sibling or a cousin, or advertising posters in billboards, or even photos that you, yourself, have taken.
Whichever of these words you use – picture, photo, painting, drawing, sketch, illustration, advertising image – to refer to any visual representation, there is certainly magic in the power of images to inspire creativity.
An aspiring writer should, therefore, learn to develop this technique, that of looking at a picture not only in an aesthetic way but in an imaginative way to bring up one’s creative juices.
So, how to go about nudging one’s creativity by looking at a picture in a fanciful or fictive way?
Check the photos below and see (or feel) what sparks of creativity within you will be triggered.
And for today’s exercise, scroll up and check the photo that is posted below the header. What images or story ideas are created in your imagination as you look at the spot where the Ghost Walk adventure starts? Share with us what triggers your fictive creativity just by looking at any of the images shown on this page.
ABOVE is the medieval three-arched Devil’s Bridge spanning the River Lune in Kirkby Lonsdale, built around 1370, located in the Cumbria district in England. Folklore says that this bridge was built by the Devil himself with his bare hands.
LEFT: At each entry to the bridge is this warning: it is illegal to jump from the Devil’s Bridge. Currently, the fine is £500.
But thinking both realistically and imaginatively, will a jumper survive the jump? If the Devil’s Bridge jumper dies, would he still be required to pay the fine?
Or, what if a broken-hearted Romeo prepares to jump (to his death) but his Juliet sees him and professes her love for him?
