first attempt at Bokeh C&C please

[cream T]

[IzzieK]

Separately, this is very nice. I used to practice on Christmas lights...but this is cute too, just not with the egg shell. There is an almost diagonal mark from the side of your egg shell container. 'Could use with some cloning out there too. Please do not get annoyed at me, this egg looks tipsy with the bubbles coming out of it or dropping inside the shell...just the first thought that came to mind when I saw it...oh the bokeh is good but I think if you are going to use it as a background for some other image, it has to be more blurred. Nice shot.

[jcuknz]

Deleted by author as inappropriate ....interesting angle on blurr

[mikesan]

I am unable to evaluate the quality of bokeh in this photo.
Perhaps you can tell us what you were trying to demonstrate with this image.

[cream T]

I am unable to evaluate the quality of bokeh in this photo.
Perhaps you can tell us what you were trying to demonstrate with this image.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bokeh

In photography, bokeh (Originally /ˈboʊkɛ/, /ˈboʊkeɪ/ BOH-kay — also sometimes pronounced as /ˈboʊkə/ BOH-kə, Japanese: [boke]) is the aesthetic quality of the blur produced in the out-of-focus parts of an image produced by a lens. Bokeh has been defined as "the way the lens renders out-of-focus points of light".

this trial piece obviously needs more light on the foreground subject to make it stand out more. But it was a whimsical attempt at an Easter theme.

[dennybeall]

My idea of bokah is that it's used to create an attractive background (!!) for your subject. This appears to me to be using the bokah as part of the main subject and it doesn't do it for me. Perhaps if the bokah was larger and the egg and stand were brighter and a bit larger it would be better in my view.
Perhaps it's "ART" and I don't understand "ART" so consider my comments from that standpoint....

[tao2]

Hi Graham,

Ah'd want the lights and egg in the same plane. At the moment, it looks like a double exposure or a post processed composite. It looks like the lights are a fair bit behind the egg. The egg+cup are nicely shot but the lights don't look like part of the image. If the lights were emerging from the eggcup, they'd look like they were shooting out of it .

Had ye shot that in the same low light against say, a window, at night. Then the reflections from the lights may have given ye that bokeh background ye want. Ah almost always shoot wide open and close tae the subject, if ah want a particular bokeh effect.

Doing it that way would make the circles much sharper, which, IMO, is what they need. As it is, it's not bokeh but simply a fun photo. It's the background, lens and aperture which define the type/quality of bokeh ye have, The Japanese prize "smooth and creamy", not what some would say was distracting circles of light in the background. Others strive for those semi-transparent circles in the background.

Me? Ah like both and all the other variations ye can create.

Have a look here...http://forum.mflenses.com/bokeh-only-t69142.html

This starts off as bokeh only but members quickly began adding subjects.

[xpatUSA]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bokeh

In photography, bokeh (Originally /ˈboʊkɛ/, /ˈboʊkeɪ/ BOH-kay — also sometimes pronounced as /ˈboʊkə/ BOH-kə, Japanese: [boke]) is the aesthetic quality of the blur produced in the out-of-focus parts of an image produced by a lens. Bokeh has been defined as "the way the lens renders out-of-focus points of light".

this trial piece obviously needs more light on the foreground subject to make it stand out more. But it was a whimsical attempt at an Easter theme.

Thank you for the definition of bokeh. However, my understanding of blurring is that it occurs as a result of a particular selection of aperture f-number made for the purposes of, for example, blurring out a background so as to emphasize the foreground subject. Thus a shot is not normally made of the blurring per se, even though said blurring still has an aesthetic quality per your quote.

Therefore, to me, a shot which emphasizes blurring at the expense of a subject is quite the opposite in sense, falling indeed into the area of art as Denny suggests. In which case, qualities deemed as desirable for "good" bokeh may be undesirable from an artistic point of view. It takes little imagination that some bad bokeh, for example hexagonal shapes with exaggerated coma, might be considered good art in some hypothetical image.