Bokeh

let me see, originally uploaded by kestra_400.

Bokeh describes the blurry quality of out of focus areas in a photograph. At large apertures, in the right settings, sometimes the light is transformed to resemble little Christmas ornaments. That's bokeh. Different lenses all have their own characteristic bokeh. In some of the flickr groups you can run across lens arguments debating the "good" or "bad" bokeh of one lens versus another. This post isn't about what makes good bokeh, though. I don't know anything about that.

I'm just here to show you this photo and tell you that kestra_400 is one of a band of photographers that does beautiful low light/available light photography. And he does it on film. My own experience shooting film is limited to my Holga and an old, crumbling Nikon that I have in no way wrapped my head around yet so there's not much insight I can offer into the way this photo was shot unfortunately. All I know is that it's not always easy to find places that bokeh beautifully.

I wonder if it has to do with the city. Many of the most beautifully executed photographs that feature predominant bokeh are set in the metropolises of Eastern Asia: Tokyo, Hong Kong, Taipei. It could just be my affinity towards tiny points of shiny light shooting out of the darkness. Drop one sharp subject in there, and I'm pretty much guaranteed to drop my jaw in return. I really like how in this shot the person in the foreground seems to be peering into the distance, admiring the lights just like we are.

It's great how there not only a variety in the colors, but also intensity, and nature of the blurred out lights. There are the blue solid lights that are clumping at the bottom, a similar clump to the left of orange lights, a row of red lights coming down diagonally, and then translucent-seeming bubbles of yellow and dark red floating up to the top. Staring at those lights, I can't help but guess what I'm looking at. I try to piece together a scene in my mind, but everything dissolves as soon I start to make any sense of it.

Blue

..., originally uploaded by motionid.

Motionid is one out of a handful of photographers over in Japan walking around with amazing lenses strapped around their necks, documenting what they see on the city streets. I've been hooked on this guy's work as he has a knack for capturing subtle emotions in tack sharpness with scarce available light. Each candid portrait is loaded with feeling. The shallow dof afforded by the fast lens isolates these people, magnifying their expressions.

When I see an image like this, I feel like there's a whole story here. One commenter on flickr described the photo as having a cinematic tone and I agree. It's not just the wide crop and the dramatic lighting, but the sense that we are seeing a single frame from a movie. I wonder what it is that's weighing down his shoulders, causing that subtle lean. I wonder what music this man might have playing in his earphones that might cause him to pause and furrow his brow that way. He's dry, but that raincoat tells me maybe he expects stormy weather.

Looking through motionid's stream and seeing photos like this one has opened my eyes to the beauty of cooler color casts at night. I've always tweaked my photos in post to get a warmer, kodak-like, temp. I realize that I've neglected a world of blues and violets that I now want to go out and capture.

Domo

Catch Me If You Can, originally uploaded by liming.chen.

Here's a recent fav.

It speaks to me in a number of ways. First of all, it's a shot that I tried to take but could not. My girlfriend got one of these domo-kun plushes out of a machine and got me a matching hoodie as a gift. I thought, a machine filled with these things would make a great photograph. When went to take a look, all the domo-kuns were gone and replace with overstuffed, buck-toothed rip-offs. I had missed my chance.

Crane machines are great for a couple reasons. Repetition, colors, bright, high contrast, & scale all add to the interestingness. This machine is even cooler because the prizes look like they're all mortally scared of being picked and are backing away from the claw.

A couple technical elements also add to the image here: interesting elements in foreground, midground, and background; sharp focus; narrow depth-of-field; and tight cropping. There's the claw right up top and super close, telling us where we are. A mountain of miniature domo-kun's work well to multiply the already comical nature of this awesome character. The pair of giant domo-kun's add another point of interest, with that mid-sized guy at the top, completing the domo triangle, mr. roboto.

The narrow dof is something that conveniently just happens when you're taking photos in dark places with artificial lighting. The small f-stop that lets in all that precious light also creates this shallow field of sharpness. That one guy on the bottom right is tack sharp, and the dues behind him get progressively blurrier. It's cool and easy to do under the right conditions (and the right lens).

As for tight cropping, it was a good decision here because you kind of eliminate the machine's front panel while filling the frame with the subject, increasing the sense of crowdedness and fullness. The well on the bottom left kind of detracts from that feeling a little, but is coupled with the claw above, grounding us in the machine. One of these domo-kun suckers is in immanent danger of being picked up by that claw and dropped in that hole.