GrungePhotoshop.com

The Alchemy of Cool

Let’s face it. Grunge effects work best on cool photographs. Question is, what constitutes “cool”?

It’s hard to say. You just sort of know it when you see it, don’t you?

But there are common elements I think we can identify among photographs we consider “cool” (as opposed to boring, banal, blah). They aren’t always consistent, and they aren’t always available; but if you train yourself to start looking to find the cool, to even engineer the cool, you will develop a stronger aesthetic sense, find your own aesthetic, and come back to your computer with material that jazzes you.

I’d like to challenge you here and give you an assignment. Here it is in three words:

Uncool versus Cool.

Basically, what I want to see you do is collect PAIRS of photos: one uncool, one cool. (How I want you to define cool I’ll elaborate here in a minute, but you can pretty much go by your gut feeling on this.) The critical point here is that I want the pair of photos to be of the same subject. One shot boring and uncool. One shot cool. Here’s a simple if dramatic example:

• Uncool = photo of a pretty, pink Volkswagen Bug in a WalMart parking lot.
• Cool = photo of the same pink VW Bug, in the same parking lot, but surrounded by a Mexican gang arguing with each other heatedly and just one sexy chick (staring at the camera).

Another, simpler example:

• Uncool = photo of a bunch of guys sitting in a booth at Denny’s, laughing at something, or worse, mugging for the camera.
• Cool = same guys, same booth, but everyone is staring expressionlessly at one guy who is clearly frothing-at-the-mouth yelling at them.

Another example, without people this time:

• Uncool = photo of a a vase of flowers.
• Cool = same vase of flowers, but sitting (without any clear explanation of why) on the dirty, floor of an abandoned warehouse, lit by the dusty light of some broken windows.

Another, more complicated:

• Uncool = photo of a wheelchair.
• Cool = same wheelchair, but sitting on top of a table in a fancy restaurant.
• Cooler still = same, but with a dog in the restaurant too, barking at a frightened waiter.
• Cooler still = same, but now we also have the original occupant of the wheelchair hiding under the table watching the scene peaking from under the tablecloth. (It might be hard getting that one set up!)

Here’s a much easier one:

• Uncool = photo of a Tinker Toy creation (say a rudimentary house). Maybe being presented by someone, or sitting next to a cat.
• Definitely cooler = same creation, but in close-up, dangling from someone’s fingers (wearing a weird ring), dark woods in the distance.
• Or even cooler = same creation, but with a toy mouse in it, with it tied to a string, being pulled through the dust by a cat.

You get the idea.

Here are some thoughts I threw together on what elements can make a photo cool. Use these as a springboard for your creativity, and look for ways you could COULD shoot a photo (boring, uncool, commonplace) and how you could take one or more of these elements and bring them into the way you are shooting it and turn it into something cool, striking, original.

And keep in mind, ultimately you’re looking for a pair of photos that you can then add a third to in sequence (uncool-cool-cooler) through Photoshop. Here we’re mainly concentrating on “grunge” techniques, so if your “cool” versions can ideally be of things that seem dark or forbidding, haunting or striking, unsettling or uncomfortable, or mysterious or captivating, striking or arresting — all the better. Another consideration: you may want to look for things that look older or more run-down, objects and settings that aren’t sparkly and new.

Some Ideas For Creating Cool:

• Including something sexy or provocative (especially if it’s out of context somehow)
• Including someone you can’t image being (e.g., homeless people, tattooed punks, goths, punk rock bands, anyone living a weird or unimaginable life)
• Taking normal things but putting them in unexpected environments (not necessarily in the surreal sense, but in some way that manages to captivate)
• Taking people who are normal and making them do unexpected things (perhaps alone, as if no one is watching … or with everyone around them oblivious)
• Introducing something dark or edgy
• Shooting unexpected close-ups
• Shooting from unexpected angles
• Working in some striking effects with lighting
• Working in vivid, arresting colors
• Making use of “white space” (or empty space) and clever cropping

That should be enough to get you started. Each pair of photos: something shot in the normal fashion, then the same subject but shot in way that just makes it cool somehow.

Let’s see what you can come up with.

Send me some of your paired examples at:
rhapsodyonatheme [at] gmail.com

A few more quick thoughts to send you off with …

Perhaps the most important result to come from this exercise is going to arise after building some of these pairs (or trios, really, after you bring in the third version with Photoshop) is a statement of artistic intent: The idea that you sometimes have to go a little out of your way to find the extraordinary. You have to train your mind to look for ways of creating something of interest, rather than simply taking what’s given to you by way of a convenient snapshot. It’s about training yourself to see differently, and about encouraging yourself to step outside of what’s comfortable in order to capture a photo that will transform the mundane into something exciting and artistic.

I don’t want you to think you have to orchestrate big, complex shots. But I do want you to see what you can find, day to day, just by beginning to look through a different set of eyes. If you’re looking at your couch, and all it is is a couch, ask yourself: “How could I take a photo of that couch and actually create something that looks cool?” How can you find the ART in what everyone else just sees as an ugly couch?

And sometimes you may find opportunities to grab cool shots just by becoming more willing to ask someone to do something a little odd. Don’t worry about that. Just ask them. Get over your own need to feel cool and take a few chances. Tell them it’s for a project I’m asking you to complete. I think you will find that people are almost always more than willing to play along and have fun with stuff like this.

Again, send me some of your paired examples at rhapsodyonatheme [at] gmail.com. I’ll post the best ones here at some point and use them as examples. I may even get ambitious and work some of them into a video.