How to use the Bokeh photography technique

Bokeh is a photography technique where the user will purposely defocus the lens slightly in order to create a soft borderless aesthetic in a picture.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

Things You’ll Need:

• Camera with adjustable exposure and aperture

1. Bokeh usually works best when taking an up close picture of your subject, try finding a subject with nice clear lighting that you are able to get a good close up of.
2. Slightly unfocus your lens so that the image is now softly blurred. The image background will be significantly blurred, but try keeping the foreground image, your subject, recognizable.
3. Set your exposure time according to the amount of light present.
4. Now set your aperture to a lower f-stop number so that the aperture is opened wider. Having the aperture on a wide setting will help keep the picture in soft focus.
5. Look into your viewfinder and inspect the frame for any sharp lines or clear details in the background, this is not wanted in a Bokeh picture.
6. Now take your pictures.

Tips & Warnings

• The point of Bokeh photography is to create a borderless fuzzy photograph that still retains a recognizable image. When defocusing your lens the light in your frame may begin to make lines or circles in the background, this is unwanted. Try different angles to eliminate these sharp or defined characteristics.
• If you have your aperture setting on a high f-stop number such as f/6 or above it will make the aperture smaller and bring the picture into sharper focus thus ruining the soft and fuzzy Bokeh aesthetic.