Bokeh is one of the most popular photography techniques, perhaps because it’s powerful yet easy to do. All you need is a camera that allows you to adjust aperture and focal length, ideally a DSLR with a large maximum aperture.

Bokeh — from the Japanese ‘boke’, meaning ‘blur’ or ‘haze’ — is the blurring of a photo, or more precisely, the aesthetic quality of the blurring. You can create this blurring by using a shallow depth of field. You can create a number of striking light effects with this technique, or simply highlight a subject by keeping the rest of an image out of focus.

Just a quick video explaining how to pronounce the widely used, but often mispronounced term, 'bokeh.' How do you pronounce it?An interesting podcast on the. 'Bokeh' is intimate, expansive storytelling from people who can do a lot with two actors and an empty city. And though it's not primarily a relationship movie, its delicate story does hammer home one thing in particular: that relationships are living organisms that must endure the most unpredictable of circumstances.

To get bokeh that’s a certain shape, like hearts or stars, you can create a bokeh filter or buy a bokeh kit, which includes all sorts of shapes.

If you’re using a smartphone, you’ll only be able to mimic bokeh through a special app or in-camera effect. While these bokeh effects can be lovely, they’re not as convenient or customizable as a DSLR. At least for now, creating bokeh with a DSLR is superior to any smartphone.

Ida Hollis – Day 335

At first, you may be tempted to use bokeh for everything. But as with any technique, using bokeh does not guarantee your photos will be amazing. Not every subject lends itself well to bokeh.

For instance, if you’re photographing a broad scene or landscape, a shallow depth of field won’t work. However, if you’re focusing on a single subject, like a cup or a candle, bokeh can be a good choice.

Beautiful Examples of Bokeh Photography

Below are a few genres/subjects that work remarkably well with bokeh, plus 40 beautiful examples to inspire your own bokeh photography.

Portraits

Bokeh is a great technique for portraits because it minimizes distractions, keeping the viewers’ attention on the model. It can beautify an ugly background, too. For instance, you can turn a grungy urban background into a picturesque evening scene through bokeh.

Bokeh can also be an effective way to add interest to portraits that lack eye contact, e.g. if the model is turned away from the camera. Without this eye contact, viewers are more likely to place their attention on the rest of the photo. If the background isn’t especially interesting, you can make it more interesting and beautiful through bokeh.

However, some portraits are better off without bokeh. For instance, you might want to use the surrounding environment to tell a story about the person, or vice versa – using the portrait to tell a story about the environment. In both cases, bokeh could get in the way of this connection and narrative.

Sergio Cabezas – So colorful

unaisa momoitio — 231#2013/365………..:).

Chiara Cremaschi – Alessandra

Amine Fassi – Neighborhood glows – 3

Sergio Cabezas – you can’t hide me

Cats and Dogs

The beauty of bokeh compliments the beauty of cats and dogs. Their soft fur and sleek shape matches the softness of bokeh, and their alert eyes match the roundness of bokeh lights.

But even apart from aesthetics, bokeh can useful for cat/dog portraits taken outdoors. Since many cats and dogs have neutral-colored fur that blends in with nature, they may appear camouflaged in an outdoor portrait. By blurring the background and focusing on the cat/dog, you make them stand out despite their camouflage.

Alex Greenshpun — “Climb a tree” they said

<kephoto> — Graciebokeh1KE

Torsten Behrens – Cat Bokeh – Schleswig-Holstein – Germany

julian oh – Rocky

James Drury – flying Jessie

Insects

To get an excellent close-up shot of an insect, you may need to experiment with macro photography – a technique that goes hand-in-hand with bokeh photography. But even if you aren’t taking a macro shot, you can use bokeh to make a tiny insect more noticeable among the surrounding foliage.

Bokeh can also add textural contrast to an insect image. If the insect you’re photographing has a hard outer shell (like ladybugs and beetles), this hardness can contrast the softness of bokeh. At the same time, the roundness of the shell matches the roundness of the bokeh lights, so the two both compliment and contrast each other.

Alex Greenshpun – Ladybird

Anne Worner – Little Assassin

Gabriel Caparó – The Last Visitor

Joel Olives – Revisiting an old favorite

Amine Fassi — Syrphe – Lost

Flowers

Flowers are one of the most popular subjects for bokeh photography. Besides being lovely, flowers have a soft aesthetic that matches the aesthetic of bokeh.

In addition, the background of flower pictures tends to be perfect for bokeh. Often, there are other flowers or greenery in the background, which blend beautifully together.

Be careful not to overdo the bokeh, though. If the bokeh circles are too big, they can distract from the flower, especially if the flower is small. Smooth, blended bokeh is typically a better choice.

Bryon Lippincott — Petal Perfect

Wicaksono Trian Islami — Flowers II

Roelof de Hoog — Field of colors

jordan parks — sunday morning

Alex Greenshpun — One of a Kind

Leaves

Like flowers, leaves tend to have a great background for bokeh. But unlike a flower, you can easily move a fallen leaf or a branch of leaves to get the perfect lighting and composition. You can also work with larger bokeh circles, depending on the leaf and the setting.

For example, if the leaf is large and dull-colored, bright bokeh lights can add interest to the photo. Similarly, if there’s a strong color contrast between the leaf and the background, you can add bokeh circles without distracting from the leaf.

Slavina Bahchevanova – Fallen

Digic-Vision – One leaf

Elizme – Refrains of Nature

Elizme — ~ soft rains ~

Alex Greenshpun — Voyage to Lilliput Continues

Grass and Mushrooms

Grass can be a brilliant bokeh subject, especially when it’s glistening with dew in the morning. This dew creates lovely bokeh circles, which contrast the sharp blades of grass. You can also add other subjects to a grassy setting, such as pine cones or small toys.

If you’re lucky, you may even find some mushrooms in the grass. Mushrooms have a cute, peculiar appearance that’s perfect for close-up photos. With bokeh, you can bring out even the smallest mushrooms, so viewers can appreciate their quirky beauty.

Bokeh

Mariana – Kissing the sun

Anne Worner – Glow – Joy and Hope

Piotr Szczepankiewicz – Pine Cone 1

Jette Baltzer – Jurassic Park

Andreas Kretschmer – Herbstleben

Bastian_Schmidt – Small things

Still Life

Many of the best bokeh subjects tend to be outdoors, where backgrounds are more colorful and interesting. But you can also get great bokeh shots indoors through still life photography. Because still life photos allow you to position your subject and choose the background, you have countless options for creating cool bokeh images.

When choosing the background for a bokeh image indoors, consider what objects and light sources would blend best together. Small lights, like candles or Christmas lights, often work wonderfully because they allow for more bokeh circles. Something familiar and distinctive, such as a hand or a face, can also be a good choice.

jordan parks — Untitled

Dave Fowler — Coffee Bokeh

Nathalie – Sunday Bokeh

Chiara Cremaschi – Untitled

Omair Haq – Muslima

Lights

With the right background lights, you can make bokeh your main subject, blurring the entire photo. This approach can work particularly well when you’re photographing city lights. The glow from traffic lights, street lamps, and windows at night are so familiar that viewers can imagine the scene, even when it’s blurred. They get the beauty of bokeh while still recognizing the setting and feeling its atmosphere.

jordan parks – summer

Tenia Prokalamou – Dear forever, you didn’t last

Ludvigem – Bokeh

jordan parks – Untitled

Many of the above photos were selected from our talented Flickr group. Got a nice bokeh image? Add it to the group so we can admire your work!

Never created a bokeh photo before? If you want to give it a try, here are the camera settings you’ll need.

Bokeh Basic Camera Settings

Aperture

Start by setting up your camera to optimize bokeh. You need a large aperture, such as f/1.4, f/1.8 or f/2. Aperture settings affect the depth of field. In bokeh photography, you want a shallow field depth, which means a low f-stop number. This allows you to apply the technique of blurring to the background while your subject remains in focus. Set your camera to aperture priority.

Shutter Speed

In aperture priority mode, you can either let your camera determine your shutter speed or use customized settings of 1/50 second or faster. If you go slower than this, the background blurs too much, negating the circled light effect. This can darken an image, but don’t be tempted to go for a higher f-stop number. Try instead to increase the ISO level.

Subjects and Lighting

Bokeh is easier to achieve if you can get close to your subject. If necessary, use your zoom to help. You’ll also find that when the background is bright — i.e. street lamps at night or bright sun behind your subject — bokeh will occur more naturally.

• Bokeh Tutorial
• Bokeh Useful Resources

• Selected Reading

In this chapter, we shall discuss about various types of axes.

Categorical Axes

In the examples so far, the Bokeh plots show numerical data along both x and y axes. In order to use categorical data along either of axes, we need to specify a FactorRange to specify categorical dimensions for one of them. For example, to use strings in the given list for x axis −

Bokeh Meaning

Example

With following example, a simple bar plot is displayed showing number of students enrolled for various courses offered.

Output

To show each bar in different colour, set color property of vbar() function to list of color values.

Output

To render a vertical (or horizontal) stacked bar using vbar_stack() or hbar_stack() function, set stackers property to list of fields to stack successively and source property to a dict object containing values corresponding to each field.

In following example, sales is a dictionary showing sales figures of three products in three months.

Output

A grouped bar plot is obtained by specifying a visual displacement for the bars with the help of dodge() function in bokeh.transform module.

The dodge() function introduces a relative offset for each bar plot thereby achieving a visual impression of group. In following example, vbar() glyph is separated by an offset of 0.25 for each group of bars for a particular month.

Output

Log Scale Axes

When values on one of the axes of a plot grow exponentially with linearly increasing values of another, it is often necessary to have the data on former axis be displayed on a log scale. For example, if there exists a power law relationship between x and y data series, it is desirable to use log scales on both axes.

Bokeh.plotting API's figure() function accepts x_axis_type and y_axis_type as arguments which may be specified as log axis by passing 'log' for the value of either of these parameters.

Bokeh Photography

First figure shows plot between x and 10x on a linear scale. In second figure y_axis_type is set to 'log'

Output

Now change figure() function to configure y_axis_type=’log’

Output

Twin Axes

In certain situations, it may be needed to show multiple axes representing varying ranges on a single plot figure. The figure object can be so configured by defining extra_x_range and extra_y_range properties. While adding new glyph to the figure, these named ranges are used.

We try to display a sine curve and a straight line in same plot. Both glyphs have y axes with different ranges. The x and y data series for sine curve and line are obtained by the following −

Here, plot between x and y represents sine relation and plot between x and y2 is a straight line. The Figure object is defined with explicit y_range and a line glyph representing sine curve is added as follows −

We need an extra y range. It is defined as −

Bokeh Definition

To add additional y axis on right side, use add_layout() method. Add a new line glyph representing x and y2 to the figure.

This will result in a plot with twin y axes. Complete code and the output is as follows −

Output