Anyone that frequents photography forums, or Flickr, will have heard of bokeh. People talk of photos with creamy bokeh. They ask what lens to buy based on the bokeh it produces. Dear lord, Flickr even has HBW, Happy Bokeh Wednesday! My question is this, is it really that important? I would have thought having the main component of the image in focus was more important than the shape or creamyness of the out of focus area.
So what is bokeh? Well, different things to different people it seems.
Bokeh (derived from Japanese boke , a noun form of bokeru, “become blurred or fuzzy”) is a photographic term referring to the appearance of out-of-focus areas in an image produced by a camera lens using a shallow depth of field. Different lens bokeh produces different aesthetic qualities in out-of-focus backgrounds, which are often used to reduce distractions and emphasize the primary subject.
Right, clear as mud. If you happen to be a Poindexter, there is an even more in depth article here. Be aware, its heavy going, but if you love chatting about circles of confusion and aperture shapes, your blood pressure will rise with every passing paragraph.
So it seems bokeh is all about the look of the out of focus part of an image. Right.
So when did bokeh become popular? Again, Wikipedia say “The term bokeh has appeared in photography books at least since 2000.” That may be the case, but it seems to be tossed around with gay abandon in plenty of photography forums, and it seems to be happening more and more. It has even gotten to a point where I saw a question asked today on Flickr wanting a point and shoot recommendationbased on the bokeh the tiny tiny lens will produce.
Creamy???
I did a 30 second survey just now on Flickr. Two simple searches. Here are the results.
We found 32,076 results matching “sydney opera house“.
We found 405,609 results matching bokeh.
Who would have thought Bokeh would be more common than an Australia icon? Not me, thats for sure.
So, can someone explain the appeal in this bokeh trend? Is the backgraound more important than the foreground in a photo? Help me understand! Please. 🙂