how may i help you? :: Background Bokeh

This post has been sitting in draft form since late December just waiting for more pictures. But I just don’t have time to fill in the blanks like I really wanted to, so just let me know if you have ANY questions.

I got this email from an awesome blogger and thought I’d post a quick tutorial about this very subject.

Keli – I finally figured out how to get holiday lights bokeh but how do you get those pics where a face is in focus and the lights behind them are those beautiful bokeh circles? Thanks for your help. Jen

Basically, you just want to make sure your subject is closer to your camera than it is to the source of your bokeh, and then focus on the subject. Also, use a really large aperture (which is the smallest number). What that will do is make your subject the ONLY thing in focus, and then the lights in the background will go unfocused and turn into bokeh. The larger the aperture, the bigger the bokeh.

It’s best to try to get bokeh during the day, because using flash will change all of this. If you’re inside, you want to face your subject towards the natural light (say, coming through a window) and then you stand between your subject and the natural light source with the bokeh-creating light behind the subject.

So how do you “find” bokeh?

Outdoors, you can create beautiful bokeh by putting your subject between you and the limbs on a tree. The light coming through the leaves will create your bokeh. That is the simplest place to find bokeh, but once you figure out how to spot it, you’ll see it everywhere. ;) In the very simplest terms, it’s either a light or just light that is surrounded by something dark. So, in the case of trees, light coming through the leaves.

For example …

Also, reflective objects or buildings (or reflections in glass) make great bokeh.

But a super easy way to create bokeh is to use actual lights. Take a look at this picture right here …

And then look at my setup …

I just threw some Christmas lights over a cabinet and used the lights on the ground as my bokeh. I changed my angle of shooting to make it look like the bokeh was steam.

Other sources of bokeh:

reflective surfaces

car headlights

dew

The list goes on and on and on. You’ll see it if you look through your viewfinder, and just keep in mind, the larger the aperture (smaller the f/stop number) the better the bokeh.