Monthly Archive for January, 2012

“Bokeh”

Published on January 13, 2012 in Uncategorized. Closed Tags: .
This entry is part 4 of 4 in the series Photography tips

In photography, “bokeh” is the “blur”, or “the aesthetic quality of the blur” in the out-of-focus areas of an image. The term comes from the Japanese language and means “blur” or “haze”.

An aesthetic background makes your subject stand-out and  makes your image all the more appealing. Three things that can help you create bokeh :

  • use a telephoto lens or a macro lens
  • open up the lens (use a low f-stop – f5.6 or less)
  • get as close to your subject as possible – the depth of field is reduced the closer you are to your subject
  • make sure the background is as far behind your subject as possible

Here I used a 60 mm macro lens and was no more than 20 cm from the subject. The background was a good 5 metres behind the subject. The aperture was set at f 5.6.

Click here to see some more examples

Check out this “Bokeh Challenge“

Noirmoutiers – Les Marais Salants

Published on January 2, 2012 in Sketches. Closed Tags: .
This entry is part 2 of 3 in the series Sketches

This sketch was done using HB and 2B pencils from a watercolour painting. You have to look a lot closer when drawing than when taking photographs – you are obliged to notice differences in tone.

“To learn how to take great pictures, take art, painting and composition classes. Avoid “photography” classes, as they usually only consider technique, and rarely the fundamental artistic aspects of how to design an image and ultimately what we’re trying to create.”
source: Ken Rockwell