Blurriness: The Good Kind

For close to a year now, I have maintained a Flickr photostream as a place to store and receive feedback on my photos.  Recently, I was puzzled when someone commented on one of my photos (seen below) and said, "Nice bokeh" or something to that effect.

 At first I thought it was a typo, but then I Googled the word and found this definition on Wikipedia:

In photography, bokeh is the blur, or the aesthetic quality of the blur, in out-of-focus areas of an image, or "the way the lens renders out-of-focus points of light." Differences in lens aberrations and aperture shape cause some lens designs to blur the image in a way that is pleasing to the eye, while others produce blurring that is unpleasant or distracting—"good" and "bad" bokeh, respectively.

In other words, bokeh is (usually) when the object in the foreground is in focus and the background has a blurry, undefined quality.  However, this can be reversed or the entire photograph can be in bokeh.  If you want a more detailed explanation, here is the link to the Wikipedia article (complete with good photo examples): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bokeh

I'm glad I now have a word for that particular photography technique because it is one I use quite frequently.  I can't say I've mastered bokeh in wider shots, but it's fairly easy to do when using the macro setting on your camera (a.k.a-"the flower button"--I'll cover this topic in another post).  My camera (and probably most others) will create the background blurriness when you focus while using macro photography.  In my opinion, it makes closeup shots considerably more interesting and artistic.  A shot that is completely clear is nice, but I think the blurriness in the background makes the subject really pop and gives the rest of the photo a softer quality.  Here are some examples of macro photography with and without bokeh.  For the sake of originality, all of these photos are mine and aren't ripped off of Google Images or Wikipedia.  As always, you can click on the photo to see it larger.

Here's a crystal clear shot.  It's cool, but everything is almost TOO clear.

Here's an example where the object you would expect to be in focus (the dog) is the blurry part of the photo.

Finally, there are a couple types of bokeh going on here.  The balls of light in the window reflection is a pretty typical example of what people would associate with bokeh, and of course some of the farther way Christmas lights are also blurred, though not quite as much.

So, to wrap everything up, I just wanted share with you a technique I learned fairly recently (and one I continue to work on).  I think this "good blur" can add a lot of pop to a photo and give it a more professional feel.  I invite you to mess around with camera settings (particularly the macro setting) and try to reproduce this effect yourself.  I promise you'll be pleased with the results once you've figured it out.


Random Side Note:  If you ever want to leave a comment, feel free to do so.  I have it set up so that visitors can post comments without having to sign up for a Blogger account.  I'd love to have feedback as long as it isn't profanity-laced or ridiculously offensive.