Learning bokeh

[Sparrow]

I use in focus vs oof to draw attention to the main point of interest in the picture. I can't see why bokeh necessarily is such a bad thing. My eyes can't, in real life, focus on everything I see front to back all at the same time, why should pictures captured on film or chip have to?

I’m not sure “Selective Focus” and “Bokeh” are the same thing.

To me Selective Focus is a device to concentrate attention on and make the subject more pleasing.

Whereas Bokeh is something to find pleasing of itself, regardless of the subject, in effect one can have good and bad bokeh.

it is the latter I don’t understand, I use the former all the time

 

[bmattock]

I use in focus vs oof to draw attention to the main point of interest in the picture. I can't see why bokeh necessarily is such a bad thing. My eyes can't, in real life, focus on everything I see front to back all at the same time, why should pictures captured on film or chip have to?

It is true that your eyes cannot focus on everything at once, but one has to concentrate to notice that effect with one's eyes. Typically, the brain compensates, so the average person thinks they have sharp vision all the time, as if their eyes were 'stopped down' and they had maximum 'DoF'.

I have one eye that is still a bit wonky from diabetes and my eyeglasses prescription is not right for it - yet I can't get a new prescription made because it hasn't settled down and keeps changing. If I close my 'good' eye and think about it, I am quite aware of how poor my eyesight is in the other eye. If I leave both open, my mind compensates and I seldom notice that one eye is not anywhere near as sharp as the other. The mind is a fascinating and generally useful liar.

In that manner, I believe that the human eye / mind combination will often 'not notice' or ignore out-of-focus areas on a photograph, just as it does with what it sees in the 'real world'. If it isn't a jarring juxtaposition, it simply ignores it.

I believe that excessively OoF areas on a photo will cause the mind to stop ignoring OoF and transfer control to the consciousness to deal with. That's when people 'notice' out-of-focus areas and then they have to decide if it helps or hurts the photograph as a photograph. I think it is often done to excess, as I mentioned earlier. However, having said that, there is nothing wrong with excess if that is actually the intent of the photographer. But I think that quite often, intent is absent. Some tend to use the lens wide-open in order to get that '3D' feeling, without thinking about to what extent they could control the effect creatively. Like covering a Christmas tree with decorations - I've seen some that looked like a metalocalypse. There really is such a thing as 'too much', IMHO.

With regard to the word 'bokeh' itself - I sincerely doubt that I understand the word properly in the sense it may have been originally intended in Japanese. When I was learning photography as a youngster, I never heard the word at all. However, it has become useful to refer to 'pleasing rendition of out-of-focus areas' as 'bokeh'. I at least know what that means, and understand that concept, even if that is not properly 'bokeh'.

 

[marke]

I always thought that bokeh was a term to describe the way OOF highlights were rendered in an image, not the OOF area as a whole.

 

[Ezzie]

I’m not sure “Selective Focus” and “Bokeh” are the same thing.

To me Selective Focus is a device to concentrate attention on and make the subject more pleasing.

Whereas Bokeh is something to find pleasing of itself, regardless of the subject, in effect one can have good and bad bokeh.

it is the latter I don’t understand, I use the former all the time

Well put .

 

[Juan Valdenebro]

This is the kind of use I prefer for low dof, some might not like it, I do.

(does this image-linking work? )

Well done! A whole movie in this shoot!

About bokeh, I think it's secondary when a photograph is great... For example here, you got many things together, that's "why", and in my opinion your shot would be wonderful if you used a busy bokeh lens, or even with a lot more depth of field... This composition is romantic and yes, the bokeh helps the mood, but it doesn't depend on it at all... Totally focused images can be as romantic and moody, to me... Impressive portrait!

Cheers,

Juan

 

[StaaleS]

The 'bokeh' concept was introduced by Mike Johnston, of the Online Photographer fame. It simply refers to the rendition (ie of the blur) of the out-of-focus areas, as opposed to blur caused by camera shake or subject movement for instance; you can have good bokeh or you can have bad bokeh, the term itself is value-neutral. The word is stolen from the Japanese 'boke' fairly recently, the final 'h' is just tacked on to give an idea of the pronounciation. It is of course rather practical to have a single word to describe 'rendition of out-of-focus areas' without having to type 'rendition of out-of-focus areas' 🙂

 

[bmattock]

As I mentioned, the term 'bokeh' simply was not part of the American photographer's lexicon when I was learning photography. I only heard about it much later.

Interestingly, I found a Google News archive description of 'helwa bokeh' from 1990, in which the Japanese PM used the term to describe removing Japanese troops from peacekeeping duties. It was translated as 'peace senility'. I do not know if 'helwa' was 'peace' or 'senility' in that context.

Looking next at Google books, I found only archaic references to the "Dakota" native American language, which described 'bokeh' as 'hanging fire' (referencing a gun).

More recently, I found Roger's description in his book, "Hollywood Portraits" from 2000. He described bokeh as "the quality of the out-of-focus image."

Gerry Kopelow was more descriptive in "How to Photograph Buildings and Interiors" in 1998 with "''Bokeh'' is a Japanese word that refers to the surprisingly wide range of aesthetic properties associated with out-of-focus images. For example, small out-of-focus highlights are rendered by some lenses, such as the famous Leitz Summicron series, as soft-edged circles, by others, such as the older Schneider Xenotars, as asymmetrical teardrops, and by others, such as the otherwise exquisite Zeiss Planars, as multi-sided geometric forms."

In 2000, Tom Ang described bokeh in "Silver Pixels" as "Subjective quality of the out-of-focus image projected by an optical system, usually a photographic lens."

In 2005, 'bokeh' was entered into the book "New Words," by Orin Hargraves, as "one of the hundreds of words that enter the American lexicon each year."

Since the early 2000's, the list of descriptions of the word 'bokeh' has increased exponentially. There are even engineering papers that attempt to describe how 'bokeh' may best be produced by a given lens design.

Whatever 'bokeh' is, it clearly has arrived.

 

[bmattock]

The 'bokeh' concept was introduced by Mike Johnston, of the Online Photographer fame. It simply refers to the rendition (ie of the blur) of the out-of-focus areas, as opposed to blur caused by camera shake or subject movement for instance; you can have good bokeh or you can have bad bokeh, the term itself is value-neutral. The word is stolen from the Japanese 'boke' fairly recently, the final 'h' is just tacked on to give an idea of the pronounciation. It is of course rather practical to have a single word to describe 'rendition of out-of-focus areas' without having to type 'rendition of out-of-focus areas' 🙂

Actually, that was a rather late entry into the field.

Earlier (1997 in Photo Techniques magazine) was apparently this:

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/essays/bokeh.shtml

That is the earliest entry I have found online. Of course, with web pages, once does not know conclusively when it was first published.

 

[Chris101]

While the quasi-Japanese term seems to have originated toward the end of the last century, the concept of a blurred background used to isolate an in-focus subject is as old as photography. In his book Looking at Photographs, Szarkowski shows us some early bokey in this portrait by Hill and Johnstone, made in 1845:

 

[jonmanjiro]

Interestingly, I found a Google News archive description of 'helwa bokeh' from 1990, in which the Japanese PM used the term to describe removing Japanese troops from peacekeeping duties. It was translated as 'peace senility'. I do not know if 'helwa' was 'peace' or 'senility' in that context.

really bad translation but ...

heiwa (not helwa) = peace
bokeh = senility

 

[Sparrow]

While the quasi-Japanese term seems to have originated toward the end of the last century, the concept of a blurred background used to isolate an in-focus subject is as old as photography. In his book Looking at Photographs, Szarkowski shows us some early bokey in this portrait by Hill and Johnstone, made in 1845:

Does he conclude that to be intentional? for artistic effect that is, I’ve not read the book

 

[bmattock]

really bad translation but ...

heiwa (not helwa) = peace
bokeh = senility

Domo arigato. My Japanese is rather limited to terms for 'bring me more beer' and 'yes, more of that please' picked up in disreputable parts of Naha, learnt some 25+ years ago.

 

[lorriman]

To my mind bokeh of some kind is essential for a whole class of semi-formal, contextual portraiture, and of such a quality that it doesn't distract from the subject. My brother strongly disagrees and prefers to have everything in focus which I think verges on the immoral, but then he always was the black sheep of the family.

 

[jonmanjiro]

Domo arigato. My Japanese is rather limited to terms for 'bring me more beer' and 'yes, more of that please' picked up in disreputable parts of Naha, learnt some 25+ years ago.

sounds like a pretty good way to spend some time in okinawa 😉

btw probably more accurate to translate heiwa bokeh as "peace induced stupor".

 

[tritiated]

The abundance of small sensor point and shoots and cropped dslr creates scarcity in the possibility of using of the most shallow depth of field, so it's percieved value is higher. And hence there is saturation of the market!

 

[Rob-F]

The abundance of small sensor point and shoots and cropped dslr creates scarcity in the possibility of using of the most shallow depth of field, so it's percieved value is higher. And hence there is saturation of the market!

Not sure I follow that. I think you are suggesting that there is a high demand for equipment that can be used for shallow DOF, since most of what is in use now is incapable of shallow DOF, increasing the value of such gear. But then the market would not be saturated; instead, the gear would be hard to get. I must be reading you wrong.

 

[Chris101]

Does he conclude that to be intentional? for artistic effect that is, I’ve not read the book

Szarkowski didn't comment on the bokey per se. He wasn't usually concerned with technical aspects of photographs. But he did mention that Hill and Johnstone often used softness in their work. In fact pictorial and portrait photos of 19th century photography often exhibits bokey (or off-subject blur that may pass as bokey. 😉 )

My point is, that the name may be new, but the effect has been a part of photography from the beginning. I agree though, that now that it does have a name (however you spell - or pronounce - it) the use of background blur has become much more common. No doubt due to the proliferation of fast lenses, which make it easy to produce.

 

[MikeL]

OOF stuff can't make a photo, but to me, it can break a photo if it is too noticeable and distracting. Shouldn't be too noticeable. One thing I like about medium and larger formats is that the OOF stuff is soft but things are still recognizable- a chair in the background is still a chair (unless wide open, long focal length)- and not too abstract.

It has been interesting watching the photographs in the local paper change over the years. Way more images with a thin depth of field, and ultra-wide angle. I guess that will become the norm eventually, and then things will shift back.

 

[maddoc]

Part of the concept of boke (blurred) in photography comes from the "are, bure, boke" (rough, blurred, out of focus) era of the Provoke editors, founded in 1968 by Takuma Nakahira, Yutaka Takanashi, Koji Taki, and later Daido Moriyama. "boke" means in it's original form simply "out of focus" and there is no "good" or "bad" boke...

It was an expression to describe their style, an internal subversion against the optical clarity that had always passed as visual clarity in the photographic image.

For those interested:

Photography that Provokes

 

[Sparrow]

Szarkowski didn't comment on the bokey per se. He wasn't usually concerned with technical aspects of photographs. But he did mention that Hill and Johnstone often used softness in their work. In fact pictorial and portrait photos of 19th century photography often exhibits bokey (or off-subject blur that may pass as bokey. 😉 )

My point is, that the name may be new, but the effect has been a part of photography from the beginning. I agree though, that now that it does have a name (however you spell - or pronounce - it) the use of background blur has become much more common. No doubt due to the proliferation of fast lenses, which make it easy to produce.

Before the fast 35mm lenses started appearing in the 1930s I had assumed OOF areas were due to technical limitations rather than a deliberate artistic statement, well apart from the Pictorialists that is but then they blured everything