#Bokehlicious
History
Who out there knows the origin of Bokeh? Well, you might be surprised by it. “Bokeh” comes from the Japanese word boke (暈け or ボケ), which translates to “blur” or “haze” in English. This is derived as a noun form of the verb bokeru, although there are a lot of other terms that relate to the term bokeh. The English spelling of “bokeh” was popularized in 1997 in Photo Techniques magazine when editor Mike Johnson commissioned three papers on the topic. The term bokeh has been used not only in photography but also in painting.
Techniques
Let’s talk about techniques for achieving some great bokeh. First, let’s talk about aperture. The aperture of your lens determines the amount of light that the lens allows in to hit the sensor/film. Aperture basically affects the depth-of-field, which is where you get the bokeh. When your aperture is wide open (or also seen as a lower number, like f/1.8) it allows for more light, faster shutter, and the creation of a blurry effect on the objects in the background. This effect is often used in portrait and product photography, and it is a great way to isolate and focus attention on a single or important subject. The blur is what is known as bokeh. There are many forms of bokeh, and most of the time this is affected by the number of blades in the aperture or some sort of shape placed on the front element of the lens. For best results in bokeh, it is good to use fast prime lenses, long focal lengths, and of course, shoot wide open. The closer you are to your foreground subject, the more prominent the bokeh in the background.
Favorite Lenses
Moving on to a fun subject: Choosing that great lens for achieving great bokeh. Personally, my go-to lens for just running out of the house is my 50mm f/1.8. This is a prime lens, so it is fast and small, meaning it is easy to carry around. It has a sharp focus and very clean bokeh. After that, I would suggest getting the following lenses: ·
Nikkor 105mm f/1.4
50mm f/2 Leica Summar
85mm f/1.5 Helios-40-2
50mm f/1.4 Super-Takumar
Voigtlander 35mm f/1.4 MC
These lenses offer creamy, smooth, unique bokeh. Another inexpensive option that doesn’t provide the sharpest images but is still fun, is the Creative Bokeh Optic by Lensbaby. Seriously - look it up and see what cool things you can do with it. Speaking of creative options for bokeh, you also can create unique shapes of bokeh just with some tape and cardboard or paper.
July Instagram Theme
#Bokehlicious
All that information brings me to the theme for July that I did on Instagram. If you have not checked it out yet, head on over to https://instagram.com/CinimodPhoto - you won’t regret it.
I wanted to come up with a theme that was outside my normal realm of pictures but still integrate things that I would normally take pictures of. I came up with this idea purely because I was unable to sleep and decided to go out taking pictures at about 2:30 am. I ended up taking a picture of a police car driving by but did not focus got a blurred bokeh image; it clicked instantly. After that, I began looking at the world in a different way, finding moments that felt right to capture but then capturing them in a way that concentrated on bokeh. Suddenly, stories that I wanted to tell started popping in my head, emotions flooded through me telling me how to capture each moment but with bokeh. It was as if I was hiding the true story behind a blur, a story to which only I knew the ending. I hoped that every time someone looked at my #bokelicious images, they would try and tell a story in their heads or feel emotions in their heart, all the while not knowing what the image was. That was the best part of this for me, the knowledge that it forced people to come up with a story and not just have a story told to them.
Inspiration and emotion are the biggest reasons I have for photography. Go out and look at the world in a way you never have, go out and experience the world through the eyes of a different subject. I will tell you right now that your stories will change, your photography will change, and you will grow from it.
#Bokehlicious Captions
Figure 1 Lighted Stop Sign
So, for those who have already checked out the theme for the month you would have seen this picture, now of course I wanted people to figure out on their own and of course, tell their own story with these images, but I figured I would share some of the behind the scenes.
Figure 2 This is an example of manipulating Bokeh
As you see in this image, as I spoke of earlier this is a manipulated bokeh using just a piece of paper that I cut the shape of an airplane on and taped to the lens when taking a picture of my outside lighting on my patio.
Final Thoughts
This month’s theme #bokehlicious challenged me and gave me a different way to look at the world. Looking back at all the pictures I can remember exactly what the image was of and where I was when I took it. If you want to do a project like this, it is very easy, focus on an object near you then turn your camera toward that special subject you have in mind that is a good distance from you, and boom you get this effect. Typically, I like to find a subject that I would have shot in a normal composition but then bokeh it for this project. For this project, I did not want to get too complicated, so I stuck to using my Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 lens on my Nikon D7200. For this project I was shooting mostly at night however, there were some exceptions, and they were all done here in Palm Beach County in Florida. Now I ask myself was this project fun? Yes. Was this project worth doing? Yes. Will I do this project again? Yes, but next time I hope to do this using some sort of vintage lens like the 85mm f/1.5 Helios-40-2. For my next project, I am going to be working on learning more about Double Exposure, I am still new to this form of photography that used to be pretty much a staple form in film photography, but most modern digital cameras also have the function. I will not be doing any photoshop double exposures just in-camera.
