sunday school: 'tis the season to make bokeh

For photographers like me, if there's one thing we drool over during the holiday season, it's the seemingly infinite sources of itty bitty points of light EVERYWHERE, from one's own home, to the neighbor's bejeweled trees, to the local mall. And itty bitty points of light mean one thing to us, do they not?  BOKEH BUBBLES.*  That's right, folks.  If the festive side of Christmas annoys you or stresses you out, look on the bright side--there are endless opportunities for blowing bokeh bubbles into your images.

If you've ever wondered how to capture the kind of magical bokeh characterized by dreamy floating balls of colored light, this is the perfect time to experiment and learn by trial-and-error.  Just keep in mind these few basics, and you'll be an expert bokeh bubble blower in no time!

• Shaped bokeh is created by the blurring of highlights, such as small points of light or reflections of light.  This is why sunlight poking through summer tree leaves makes for pretty bokeh.
• The shape of the bokeh is determined by the shape of your lens's aperture.  If you like your bokeh nice and round, try shooting wide open with a fast prime lens like the popular 50mm f/1.8.  If you want to get a hexagon shaped bokeh, try a narrower aperture such as f/4.5.
• The key is to position your lens with your subjects in the foreground with the points of light (such as Christmas tree lights) in the background so that when you focus on your main subjects, the lights behind them will blur into magical bubbles of bokeh.
• You can experiment with the size of your bokeh by changing the depth of field or focal length of your lens or by modifying the distance between your lens and the subjects and the distance between the subjects and the points of light behind them. 

I've seen some great bokeh bubbles that make use of the abundant little lights of the holiday season.  If you have images of such bokeh that you'd like to share, we'd love to see them.  And if you have any tips on capturing the magic of bokeh, please do share those as well!

*By bokeh bubbles, I am referring to the shaped bokeh of blurred highlights, as opposed to creamy bokeh, which is just smooth blur.

light into darkness

"Beautiful light is born of darkness"  ~ R. Turnbull

I stand under this tree, his hand in mine... we spin ourselves dizzy. It's an Austin tradition, and one I do with thousands of others each year because I secretly hope I can spin my wish into reality. As if a string of bokeh lights can make a single wish come true.

He laughs and I stumble and I lose track of who is adult and who is child.

Those of us in the Northern Hemisphere are spinning slowly... tick tock... into the darkness and lengthening of day. Soon we will come to rest softly in the cold of Midwinter; but until we do, we find ourselves with more dark than we know what to do with.

As I think about the upcoming solstice, I think about what it means to stand still and accept the lack of sunlight. I think about the darkness that comes before dinner, the early mornings void of sunshine. I think of hibernation and cups of tea to warm my hands. It makes me seek light, almost where there is none. It makes me step outside my natural light comfort zone.

Where in all of this do you find light? I know it's out there, hiding in the nooks and crannies of shorter days, it's waiting to be discovered by you. Today, share with us what you find and we will be overcome with love by the light created from thin air.  We'll see the future and a world of catchlight through a set of new eyes.  We'll hush the silence that reflects light in the quiet stillness of dark.  We'll count the thousand points of light as if they are trees in a forest.  And we'll gasp in joy at the lights of your city.  

Today, won't you join me in my search for light? Share with us the light that is revealed to you in darkness.

Sunday School: When Life Gives You Raindrops, Make Bokeh

It's been a cold, wet October here in the Windy City.  Summer never quite settled in, and we hoped she'd be back before Autumn took over the lease, but I think it's time we collectively stopped holding our breaths.  No worries, though, because safely nestled in a warm car on a rainy day, you can catch some amazing bokeh.

So the next time it rains in your neck of the woods. grab a good mix CD (or whatever you mp3 mavens do for the car), jump in the nearest available windshield fortified vehicle, drive to a location with an interesting mix of colors and shapes (your driveway may work just fine), turn off the wipers and wait for just the right amount of raindrops to congregate on your windshield.  Soak in the dreamy creamy blur and start catching some magic.  To get the raindrops to bokeh (e.g. blur), make sure that you are not focusing directly ON the raindrops but either PAST the windshield on something outside or somewhere in FRONT of the raindrops (your toes on the dashboard, perhaps).  On the flipside, focusing on the raindrops themselves can get some interesting creamy bokeh of the outside as well.  The possibilities are just endless!

Catching bokeh in a rain shower is probably easiest done at night on a busy street with lots of street lamps, but I'm sure it can also be done during the day.  You can play around with the size of the bokeh by changing the distance of your lens from the windshield.  Generally, the closer your lens to the windshield, the bigger the bokeh.  You can also experiment with the shape of your bokeh by changing the size of your aperture.  The wider the aperture, the rounder your bokeh will be.  Or if you're one of the lucky people who own a Lensbaby and their Creative Apertures Kit, you don't need to limit yourself to circles and hexagons.

For those of you who live in the desert, I apologize.  Maybe you can hook up the sprinkler or something.

If you get a chance to try this out, we'd love to see your results.  Or share with us your favorite image made possible by rain.

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P.S. If you'd like to try a carbon neutral option, a clear umbrella works great, too!

beautiful bokeh

Ever since I heard the term Bokeh I was intrigued. I am infatuated with light and how light works to create a good photograph. I had always thought of Bokeh as the translation of out of focus light in little (or big) circular or sometime octagon-like shapes. We’ve all seen lovely shots full of beautiful bokeh but there’s more to it that I thought. I didn’t realize until a few months back that out of focus elements of the image that are smooth and delicious are also called Bokeh. OK then, now I know.

But what really got my attention is the term “bad bokeh”. Bad? Ouch. I'm not a person who really likes that word so it makes me cringe a little.  To my delight, after all this talk about bad bokeh, it turns out that folks are finally letting on that what is good and bad about Bokeh is highly subjective. Indeed! Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, er, photographer. My sentiments exactly.

When I look at a photograph (mine or someone elses) I am either drawn to it, or I am not. It's personal. There are elements within the shot that I could examine and describe and break down in my own mind. Why I like it, what works for me, etc. but mostly I just go on feel. How does the image make me feel? That is usually the indication to me of whether or not an image works. I know there’s a science to Bokeh but it makes my head spin trying to crack the code. So, I continue to seek these whimsical and mysterious circles of light, treating them like compositional elements, honoring them, giving them space to dance and play with my subjects and through trail and error I discover what works for me. Of course then there's the question of processing. I digress.

I know I’ve succeeded when a simple image whispers secrets of beauty to my bended ear. When my spirit is lifted by a single moment distilled. When I beleive that anything is possible. When I feel it.

Do you also share a love affair with light?  I’d love to hear your thoughts and see the images of with bokeh that whisper secrets to you.

Gathering Bokeh

A few months back Sarah-Ji shed some light on the meaning of the background and technique of bokeh. Back then, I was infatuated with the idea and the look of ‘beautiful bokeh’ and loved that it would just magically appear in a photograph I captured now and again. It was always a nice surprise to be met with lovely soft spheres in the background of my image, sometimes solitary, sometimes in a chorus or sometimes coming from a mix of light and water in mystifying sunspot like shapes. I am partial to and speaking of the lovely little ‘balls’ of bokeh (as opposed to the smooth and silky, non circular kind) just to clarify for this post.

If you have been reading this blog since it’s incarnation, you probably know by now that I am smitten by surprises like these and love to stumble upon beauty by happenstance. In other words, I subscribe to the notion of photographic magic and happy accidents and I am pretty content living and shooting in that state of mind when I can get away with it. However, my appreciation and admiration of Bokeh slowly grew into a kind of obsession. A healthy obsession, but an obsession none the less. I quickly became what one might consider a bokeh stalker. I began to notice when it was showing up in my photos and paying more attention to what I was doing at the time of the capture in hopes to better understand it and to be able to eventually, consistently recreate it. If certain photographic details don’t pique my curiosity enough to want to try to crack the code on them, I just enjoy them when they do decide to show up. You know, that magic thing again—kinda like the whole thing is out of my control. In the case of pretty, petite-planetary bokeh, I felt driven to figure out how to find it and how to gather it up in my images. I liken it to learning to catch fireflies in a jar which, by the way my girls and I learned to do for the first time over the summer. So fun!

As I began to recognize what time of day the natural light bokeh was most likely to be bountiful and easy to access (in the early morning and late afternoon light) and how the light could become dappled enough to create the celestial circles (filtered through bushes or tree leaves) I began to then play with it’s size. The aperture you are set at, will affect the circumference of the circles (i.e. the size of the opening of the aperture will either bring that light into focus or will throw that light out of focus. The more out of focus the light speckles are, the larger your bokeh circle. So, I got that down but it still wasn’t enough. I had to take it a step further. See what I mean about obsession?

I had to find a way to collect the light in such a way that I could place the circles right where I wanted them. Imagine being able to find the bokeh when you want it and then actually control where the shapes end up? Oh I know, it seems all too calculated for a self-proclaimed intuition photographer like myself but the results are intoxicating and the experimentation is addicting.

Finding the filtered light and shooting at the aperture that gives me the results I desire is not the part that is compelling for me. That stuff is just a trial and error; a practice makes much closer to perfect thing. It’s in the careful placement of the shapes that my truest artist comes out to play.

As we learn to fine tune the way we see our subjects, pay attention to the background of our shots, fill in the negative space with glittering, sparkling, dancing light, we begin to actually write the poetry of own photographic work. As if almost beckoning us, bokeh is happy to oblige, and allows us to surely and steadily harness it’s magic.

What images can you share that unveil the mysteries of bokeh? Any tips or tricks to your process? Is it a science to you or more the coincidence of the click? Beauty is beauty no matter how we capture it. I cannot wait to see what you and your bokeh have created together.