Photography Friday!! {Photography Tidbits}

Thanks to everyone who participated last week in "Beautify It"! It was fun to see everyone's take on the same picture and all the tones and crops that were used. This was one of my favorite edits by Leesa:

Just LOVE the tone and blending used on the one on the left. Great job all!

Today is time for a "Photography Tidbit"! I had planned on writing up a little lesson, but because its Christmas time I wanted to share with you one of my favorite techniques in photography which is called Bokeh. For those who are unfamiliar with this technique, it allows for the quality of 'the blur' that is unfocused behind your subject, or rather the light points that are in this unfocused area. I took this photo this morning:

The reason I love bokeh during Christmas is because of all the lights, especially on christmas trees! They are just beautiful. I shot with a Canon 50mm lens with aperature at 1.8, ISO 640, and 1/60 s. Typically at a lower shutter speed you will need a tripod, but I was able to hand hold this one with my elbow resting on the table. Image is straight out of the camera, with a slight curves adjustment done in PS4. (We'll get to those types of things in later lessons) Rather than try to write up an entire lesson on how to do this and 'beat a dead horse' figuratively, this week I'm going to refer you to this lesson:
"Holiday Lights Tutorial" by the very talented Darcy. She explains the step by step brilliantly, and there is even a link for custom bokeh, where you can make the lights into hearts, starts, etc. Sweet!

Have fun this week creating bokeh! I apologize that because aperature is very important in bokeh, a lot of the 'point and shoot' cameras won't do it, or do it as well. (I could be wrong, please correct me if I am :) Maybe its time to finally bug your neighbor to borrow their camera for an hour... :) Feel free to link up your creations, we'd love to see them!