What’s the Deal with Bokeh?

I’ve seen it before in movies but never knew it had a name. Bokeh.

Bokeh is an out of focus point of light you’ll see in backgrounds of photos. When I joined Flickr, I noticed there were groups dedicated to nothing but bokeh. I also noticed some photographers do only bokeh photos. And photos that have that stuff have a gazillion adoring comments.

There is some in this photo I took, but it is not ideal.

bokeh2

Here’s an excellent bokeh photo someone has over there.

So I wondered, what’s the big deal?

I thought about some of my favorite moments in film and the images that flashed in my mind were ones that had bokeh in them.

A moonlit kiss on a porch with a fuzzy moon as a backdrop would be a good example.

But I don’t have one to show you.

Then I thought about some dramatic moments of my life. Bokeh in the background. Like when my son was born and his face was the only thing I could focus on because they gave me a powerful hallucinogenic drug.

That’s when I really got it.

17 thoughts on “What’s the Deal with Bokeh?”

Kitty, I snickered when you said, “Bokeh.” Like you were, I was skeptical but after your last paragraph, I now understamd exactly why bokeh is popular. I didn’t have the drug but I know just what you mean.

good luck for all, God bless u

i want to say hi to Kym, 🙂

I had never heard this word before…then you AND someone else blog about it on the same day!!! Bizzare….

Kym, you have a fan. LOL.

Hi, trie, thanks for the blessings.

Christina, send me the link or post here if you can find it again.

Wow….I NEVER thought about this before….. thank you.

I had an inconsequential boyfriend in my early 20s – and our first kiss was on a street in DC one night in the rain. I kept my eyes open, and the National Cathedral, all lit up in rain light was in my line of sight. BOKEH!

Hi kitty,

I never knew this thing had a name, may be other things do have some names 🙂 i hope, like some times there’s lines on the photos if you take photos of light sources like street lights,car lights … ! , i bought a camera on my birth-day [oct]

http://nikon.co.in/productitem.php?pid=1224-3f03765807

will take some with it and see. good writing.

regards,
kumar.

Ruth, rainy bokeh is my absolute favorite.

Yay for you Kumar. That is a nice camera.

When I read the title of this post, I first thought Bokeh was some kind of food. Tell’s you where my head is at.

Interesting post, I willl look for those in pics now.

It does sound like some exotic food.

I’m trying to think of a specific movie example of where you’d see it. That scene in Pulp Fiction where Travolta is spaced out on heroin and driving that car, I think maybe it is in there. Also the movie “Leaving Las Vegas” it seems as if the entire movie was bokehtized.

I see bokeh when I’m drunk. LOL.

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Now see, I’ve always called it “that thing where people don’t focus their cameras because they’re artistic.”

So…that’s got a name. Nice. Is there a name for “that thing where people color up pictures of Che Guevara because they’re revolutionary”?

Hey, I want to thank Kym for pointing me to your blog. I never heard of bokeh before, but I took a picture with bokeh the other day, accidently. You can see it here.

Yep Rassles, it’s called street art/graffiti, LOL. Check out this link to the graffiti artist who did Obama’s iconic Hope poster: http://blog.wired.com/underwire/2008/09/poster-boy-shep.html. I love that stuff, if done well.

Silverstar, I too, would like to thank Kym for pointing you to here.
I love your Space Needle photo.

Hi Kitty, you’ve justgive me something to ask my brother about ( he’s an excellent photographer)- which is okay because he’ll get all weird and I’ll end up with some funny posts- I’ll explain later….

Silver Star- I work in Seattle and I’m sorry I missed out on WInterfest, it looked like a lot of fun!

Animar- Winterfest goes on until New Year’s Eve. Still lots of time to check it out.

Well tell him you know that the better the bokeh, the better the lens it was shot with.
Which is why mine is not that hot, but I had a hard time trying to “borrow” a great bokeh image from Flickr. Some of those guys are so not into letting people use their stuff, even with credit.
I guess a lot of them get bombarded with people asking to use them all the time and they just shut it all down.