It seems counter-intuitive to buy expensive lenses just to blur a picture! In short, that is what Bokeh is – the art of blurring the background of a photo.
While I understand that many post-hoc digital tools are available to manipulate an already taken picture, I remain old-fashioned or, as my colleagues call me, a Photosaurus!!! I have no experience with digital manipulation tools as the pleasure of photography remains two-fold for me: to frame the picture as I want it to come out, and, to play with the shades while printing it in the darkroom. That is the extent of my “manipulation”.
So, bokeh, a Japanese word that sounds exotic, mean blur. It is not the French word bouquet to describe the complexity and aroma of a wine, although blurring certainly gives a flavor to a photo. Before the age of digital cameras and smart lenses, the blurring of a photo was done by adjusting the relationship of shutter speed and lens aperture to the speed of the film used. Simply put, when the lens is opened wide and the shutter speed set at slow, the focusing of the manual lens is on the subject of the photo. Then, depending on the combination to which aperture and speed are set, the background is blurred. The goal of blurring is to make the subject stand out such as in portraits.
I started by saying that one has to buy expensive lenses to achieve noticeable bokeh. That is because historically lenses were made of glass and grounded often by hand. To achieve uniform transmission of light and minimize distortions, such glass was very costly to produce. Add to that the building of a lens that opens wide, say f1.2, and you were looking at thousands of dollars for a lens many decades ago. But there is more – a lens could be of good glass and open wide, but the bokeh can be smooth, silky, creamy or harsh! For photography purists (you know, those who still use 1950s Leica lenses and search the Internet for rolls of ASA 50 Black & While film made in Croatia…!) a harsh bokeh is as unpalatable as red wine stored under the sun….
… Like all photographers, I have my favorite lenses for bokeh. But, as a street photographer I do not have the luxury of changing lenses to optimize a shot when the light changes or the wind blows in a certain way. Therefore I rely on lenses that can produce a bokeh when I want it, and also render photos where both background and subject are in focus when I have to click quickly as I walk the streets.
Here are a few examples of different types of bokeh:
South Africa, near Kruger National Park. It was an introduction to elephant behavior and anatomy. At some point, the handler asked the elephant to lie down so we could see the bottom of its feet. The padding is quite amazing since it changes in texture with the seasons. We were told that grooves form in those pads during rainy season to add traction, while these pads remain smooth during the dry season. As I was framing my “elephant feet” shot, a female tourist lined up in the background, allowing me to take human legs and elephant feet in the same shot. I opened the 1940’s Serenar lens to f1.9 and set my 1954 Canon rangefinder to 1/30 second speed. The bokeh is soft but not total, as I was hoping.
Notre Dame, Paris. I had my Mamiya 645 medium format camera with me, with a Sekor f1.9 lens. This is a very fast lens for medium format, and its cost is more than 4 times the cost of the camera itself. I like it for indoor portraits as I never use flash and therefore need to capture as much light as I can. The bokeh in this photo is much more pronounced, and unless you know the Notre Dame area well, you would not place this portrait in a specific setting.
Prague, Charles Bridge. It was a rainy day and I was walking around with my 1960’s Nikon F hanging from my neck. I had a Nikkor f1.4 lens on allowing me to take photos long after sunset. The posture of this man, the low evening light and the recognizable architecture of Prague made for a pleasant moment to frame. I wanted to keep the fluidity of the man’s walk a central theme but keep the identity of the setting recognizable. So the bokeh is there and the focus remains on the man.
New Hampshire. Robins made a nest above our cabin door and we became part of the “family” for more than a month, before the new chicks took their flight and left the nest empty. I took this photo of the chicks waiting for mama to bring worms with a 1960s Ukrainian Salyut medium format camera. Since I opened the lens to f2.8 and was on a ladder close to the nest, the focus on the chicks gave a double blur: the front of the nest is off-focus and the background is blurred.
Upstate New York. This is combination of natural blur in the background (due to fog) and a minimal bokeh. My dog was enjoying sitting in the middle of the street as all traffic had stopped given the layer of snow on the road.
And, since he is sitting on the road, I can justify this shot as “street photography”!
October 30, 2016
© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2016
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