The ability of the camera to freeze a moment in time can also help us express tension. By silhouetting this woman as she takes a soup break at a rest stop, I abstract her and thereby encourage the eye to read the profile rather than her expression. I create tension here by stopping a moment in time so the action is left uncompleted. The spoon full of soup already rests within the mouth, but it is not yet consumed. It is the negative space between the lips, teeth and spoon that carries the energy here. We see her during that first delicious moment of taste, her head pulled forward in anticipation of all that will follow. I’ve created additional visual tension by contrasting the diagonal flow of the arms and the horizontal flow of the spoon, to the downward vertical thrusts of the chopsticks and her long hair.