Time of Year for Bokeh

This is a good time of year to practice Bokeh photography. What is Bokeh? Roughly translated, it’s a Japanese word that means blur. In photography, it’s a picture with an object in focus in the foreground with the background blurred. The cheesiest way to produce a reasonable representation of a Bokeh photo is to shoot an object in front of small lights. Since there are two Christmas trees in the house, I decided to try it out. This is an artificial flower with a Christmas tree in the background:

 What you want to do is keep your camera in aperture priority mode, use the lowest F-stop you can get, and shine a light on the foreground object. I have a little pocket LED flashlight that I use. Also use manual focus. The lights in the background should come out bubbly and diffused.

Here’s another:

The longer focal length lens you have (such as a good zoom) the fuzzier the background lights will be. This becomes problematic when shooting at close distances, like in our family room where I took these pictures. Bokeh is a cool trick to have in your bag, but like anything else, can become tiresome if overused. With so many Christmas lights and trees around, now’s the best time of year to practice.