The Brilliance in Bokeh! [Cocoa Beach Photographer]

I am a little obsessed with Bokeh right now. so for those of you that are new to the business or if you just like taking photos for fun, you may be asking "ok so what is it?"

Bokeh - From Wikipedia

Coarse bokeh on a photo shot with an 85mm lens and 70mm aperture, which corresponds to f/1.2In photography, bokeh is the blur,[1][2] or the aesthetic quality of the blur,[3][4][5] in out-of-focus areas of an image, or "the way the lens renders out-of-focus points of light."[6] Differences in lens aberrations and aperture shape cause some lens designs to blur the image in a way that is pleasing to the eye, while others produce blurring that is unpleasant or distracting— "good" or "bad" bokeh, respectively.[1] Bokeh occurs for parts of the scene that lie outside the depth of field. Photographers sometimes deliberately use a shallow focus technique to create images with prominent out-of-focus regions.

Bokeh is often most visible around small background highlights, such as specular reflections and light sources, which is why it often associated with such areas.[1] However, bokeh is not limited to highlights, as blur occurs in all out-of-focus regions of the image. Bokeh can also be viewed by forcefully blurring one's vision whilst looking at a small light, like an LED.

in short, it's the opposite of being "in focus." so what's the big deal?? well why it's so awesome is because when shooting portraits you want the focus to be on your subject in most cases. the more out of focus the background is, the more sharp and crisp your subject is going to appear. naturally your eyes are drawn into the objects in focus. and your subject will literally POP out at the viewer. I found personally that my 50mm lens is really great for getting this effect. but with the magic of photoshop you don't need a special lens! you can actually achieve this effect AFTER you take the photos:) there are a wide range of actions for this. here are a few places where you can find them: http://www.alienskin.com/, http://www.totallyradactions.com/, and http://oeilactions.blogspot.com/. (<----michelle has some awesome actions at AWESOME prices too!!!)

but you can also get the bokeh effect with textures. here's just one example of a bokeh texture.

and here's a few examples of bokeh in some of my photos

there are so many different ways you can use bokeh these days. really there are NO rules. so get out there and create something beautiful<3

thanks for being here:) Carrie