EVERYDAY MAGIC Bokeh

“Our goal should be to perceive the extraordinary in the ordinary, and when we get good enough, to live vice versa, in the ordinary extraordinary.” ~ Eric Booth

Welcome to Lesson Two of Everyday Magic.

In this week’s lesson we are going to dig deep into those magical little orbs of light in a photograph known as bokeh. Pronounced BOH-Kə (or BOH-kay), the word “bokeh” is an English translation of the Japanese word boke, which means “blur” or “haze”.

What is Bokeh? bokeh. And it is the camera lens and how it renders the out of focus light in Photographically speaking, bokeh is the background that gives bokeh its defined as the aesthetic quality of the more or less circular appearance. blur produced by the camera lens in the out-of-focus parts of an image. But what makes this unique visual experience seem magical is the fact that we are not able to ‘see’ bokeh with our superior human vision and excellent depth of field. Bokeh is totally a function ‘seeing’ through the lens.

Playing with Focal Distance

In addition to a shallow depth of field, the bokeh in an image is also determined by 1) the distance between the subject and the background and 2) the distance between the lens and the subject. Depending on how you Bokeh and Depth of Field compose your image, the bokeh can be smooth and ‘creamy’ in appearance or it The key to achieving beautiful bokeh in can be livelier and more energetic. your images is by shooting with a shallow depth of field (DOF) which is the amount of an image which is appears acceptably sharp.

Depth of field is mostly a function of your aperture setting. And aperture is determined by the lens you are using. In my experience, any aperture setting from f/1.4 to f/4 can create lovely Once again, I am inviting you to play and One of my favorite subjects is early- experiment. See what happens when morning morning dew on the grass. I you move in closer to your subject. start by lying on the ground facing Notice the difference when you vary the towards the light. I then select a very distance between your subject and wide aperture, choose my focal point, background. What happens when you and finally adjust my exposure. I also shoot with backlight? These all affect like to experiment by varying my focal the look and vibe in your photos. point with some closer to me and some further away. This will change the appearance of the bokeh in both the foreground and background.

Magical Orbs of Light

Water droplets have an especially magical bokeh because of the way they I believe that the artistic use of bokeh capture and reflect the light. can add a magical quality to any photograph. I love how the light bounces around and reflects off of the surrounding surfaces to create a beautiful backdrop for my subjects. I love how these enchanting orbs of light can transform the most ordinary of subjects into something extraordinary.

3