This week’s Pet Photography theme is “Bokeh”.  This term comes from the Japanese language, which literally translates as “blur”.  In the world of photography, bokeh is defined as “the aesthetic quality of the blur produced in the out-of-focus parts of an image”.  This varies based on the lens used for the photograph and the number of ‘blades’ in the lens.  This is all technical photography terminology – but the bottom line is this.  If you look at a photograph and you like the way your subject stands out from the background because the background is all softly blurred – that softly blurred background is ‘bokeh’.  Pretty simple when you think of it in these terms.

For those of you that are interested in the photography aspects, it’s important to think about the aperture you are using as well as the lens mm (or magnification).  A wide angle lens has a lot more in focus and will produce less bokeh because of this.  A telephoto lens will have less in focus (as well as a macro lens used for closeup photography) will produce a lot more bokeh.  There’s a lot more to getting that blurred background than just pointing your camera at the subject.

In this photograph of Saint, all those beautiful little circular spots in the background are the bokeh produced by the Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 lens.  The soft focus of the overall photograph makes Saint pop out from the busy background at this park.

In the photograph below of Bristol, the morning light is coming through the trees on the left.  A shallow aperture, having the trees in the distance behind the subject combine to provide nice out of focus sparkles instead of well defined trees and leaves.

Julius, this little puppy, is sitting in front of an oak tree - can you tell?  The soft muted brown colors don't show detail in the bark - but instead provide a nice background to allow focusing on this cute puppy!

For more pet photographers sharing their take on this theme, head over to visit Kim with BARKography based in Charlotte NC and then head around the rest of the blog circle.

If you would like to book a custom pet portrait session, send an email to [email protected] or give us a call/text at 813-610-2671 in the Tampa Bay area (Florida).