When Will The Bokeh Craze End

[Original katomi]

Post deleted, in case peeps thought i was being personal.

 

[smoke665]

Post deleted, in case peeps thought i was being personal.

I don't think she was referring to you. LOL

@SquarePeg Sorry, I agree with you, and was following your advice till certain comments were directed at me. I've said my peace and will let it go. Thanks for intervening.

 

[Sharpshooterr]

Name calling and personal attacks will not be tolerated on this forum. Please keep all comments on topic. This is directed to all members.

People can disagree with someone without making it personal or taking it personally.

Any additional posts that contain personal attacks or are meant to poke others into attacking will be deleted.

Down boy, down! And such a cute doggy too!!
I think the man thought he’d been attacked and was merely defending himself. No worries.
I assure you, the windmill did not even throw him of his mount!!!
I’ll go back and try to smooth things over.
Thanks
SS

 

[Derrel]

Are obscure references to Don Quixote allowed here?

 

[Tropicalmemories]

Are obscure references to Don Quixote allowed here?

Only if the windmill is in the background ...... and out of focus.

 

[smoke665]

Are obscure references to Don Quixote allowed here?

Apparently only if thinly veiled, to which I respond to the attempted humor of the post of reference, with a quote from Nick Bottom....."What do you see".

 

[Derrel]

I think a better title might have been,"When will the fake bokeh craze end?" Still this has been an entertaining and long-lived thread.

 

[vintagesnaps]

D'ya mean it hasn't ended yet??!

And does anyone think the background isn't significant in the Mona Lisa?? try taking art history! lol (in school a long time ago!). Here's from the website of the Louvre -

"The nature of the landscape also plays a role."
"The middle distance..." "...represents the transition between the space of the sitter and the far distance..." "...which Leonardo has cleverly drawn at the level of the sitter's eyes..." etc.

The background matters as part of the composition. But it isn't necessarily the be-all and end-all. When I've done submissions to juried exhibits, nobody's talking about bokeh, various aspects of the composition are being considered when your work's being evaluated.

Narrow depth of field, or the quality of the bokeh created by a particular lens, or out of focus portions of an image, may all impact the overall composition and can work or not. But I don't think it works to blur a background and think that alone makes for a good image. Even out of focus parts of an image can create bright or colorful areas and be visual distractions if not taken into consideration when framing a shot, adjusting vantage point, etc.

 

[compur]

"I prefer my café mocha with swirly bokeh and that's no jokeh."
- Imogene Coca

 

[Derrel]

The Manual Focus Forum has some pretty good articles about various classic legacy 35 mm system lenses and about the bokeh produced by these lenses.

Some seven or eight years ago I referred users here to one particularly good article which had some very illustrative photographs of lens drawing, which is a somewhat different subject from bokeh.

The subject of how a lens "draws its scenes" it's something that only a few people are aware of. it's like wine tasting, or appreciating cigars, or gourmet food. The vast majority of people do not understand the finer nuances of many things. If you do a Google search for "how to create bokeh", you will likely find a couple of Pinterest articles and a YouTube video (or two, or ten) that shows you how to cut out little hearts or stars and then take photos of your Christmas tree in order to create star- or heart-shaped out of focus specular highlights. But bokeh is actually much more involved than how a lens renders specular highlights.

There is quite a bit of misunderstanding of what bokeh originally meant, and the internet age has served to create much confusion.

 

[Sharpshooterr]

@sharpshooter I very much resent your comments, as I can assure you, that I am neither naive or trolling in my OP. Your egotistical and arrogant attitude on my comments and others shows a lack of tolerance and unwiilingness to understand other viewpoints. My experience dates back 50 years, covering newspaper, forensics, legal, individuals and business, so this isnt my first rodeo.

Maybe if you'd have actually read some of my posts in the previous pages, instead of being so quick to insert your pompous opinions, you would have realized that I'm not against the use of Bokeh as a creative element. Did you actually read the OP, here's a quote from it " When used in the right situations it can be gorgeous, and can enhance an image", and in case you missed an earlier statement I still say fake blur added post by an inexperienced person looks like crap. Usually when that happens its because the photographer was either to "naieve" or "inexperienced" to take the time to be aware of their surroundings, and to consider all elements of the composition before they snapped the shutter.

Maybe you should actually read through the comments by others before posting, otherwise you come off looking like the troll.

Smoke, I apologize if you took this personally, no personal intent was meant. I had no idea who the OP even was nor did it matter. The word I used was “anyone”, not “you”. And yes I’ve read every post in this thread, so I’m quite aware of what you and others had said. In fact this thread was 2 months DEAD and I brought it back to life, at least it’s gotten lively!! LoL
You called the use of Bokeh a “Craze”, I simply said it wasn’t and to think it was, was a gross generalization. What isn’t a craze...., focus staking, film, nudes?? As I said, the craze is photography. When the photography craze dies, so will bokeh!!!
SS

 

[smoke665]

@sharpshooter apology accepted. As Derrel mentioned above the title of the OP likely belies the intent of my post. Rather then craze, a better choice of words might have been enthusiasm or exaggerated use.

I think Vintagesnaps in her comments a page over, gets where I'm coming from when she says, "does anyone think the background isn't significant in the Mona Lisa??" and "The background matters as part of the composition. But it isn't necessarily the be-all and end-all" .

Sometimes you need to show background as in an environmental composition, sometimes you need to adjust your angle rather then bluring a background with objects that could still detract from the image, and sometimes you need to consider that the location of the shot is an important element of the composition. There's a wedding photographer that posts some of his work here occasionally that is a master of finding spectacular locations. Locations that blend and intertwine with the subjects to create a unified beautiful composition.

As I've said repeatedly I'm not opposed to using blur in a composition, but it should be done as a consideration of the composition as a whole, is not a requirement of every single image you take, and if you're having to add it post, you likely didn't consider your composition before you clicked the shutter.

 

[Kiron Kid]

Are obscure references to Don Quixote allowed here?

Only if the windmill is in the background ...... and out of focus.

 

[Sharpshooterr]

View attachment 184486

Are obscure references to Don Quixote allowed here?

Only if the windmill is in the background ...... and out of focus.

Man, that elk didn’t stand a chance against THAT windmill and that windmill even has tiny little short arms!!!

 

[Sharpshooterr]

@sharpshooter apology accepted. As Derrel mentioned above the title of the OP likely belies the intent of my post. Rather then craze, a better choice of words might have been enthusiasm or exaggerated use.

I think Vintagesnaps in her comments a page over, gets where I'm coming from when she says, "does anyone think the background isn't significant in the Mona Lisa??" and "The background matters as part of the composition. But it isn't necessarily the be-all and end-all" .

Sometimes you need to show background as in an environmental composition, sometimes you need to adjust your angle rather then bluring a background with objects that could still detract from the image, and sometimes you need to consider that the location of the shot is an important element of the composition. There's a wedding photographer that posts some of his work here occasionally that is a master of finding spectacular locations. Locations that blend and intertwine with the subjects to create a unified beautiful composition.

As I've said repeatedly I'm not opposed to using blur in a composition, but it should be done as a consideration of the composition as a whole, is not a requirement of every single image you take, and if you're having to add it post, you likely didn't consider your composition before you clicked the shutter.

Smoke, thanks for letting us bury the hatchet! What a way to start the new year! LoL
OK, maybe you had a less than ideal choice of words but even so, I think the real take-away here is that the background can be just as important as the subject, assuming the background isn’t the subject!
I don’t know that bokeh/blur isn’t overused anymore that having an image sharp from front to back! If anything is being overused it’s that! With probably more than 90% of images we see today being produced by phones that until recently didn’t have the ability to blur a background or but it in artificially, we are being bombarded by sharp images.
As photographers, and I even hate to use the term, “real photographers” with “real cameras”, we have the abilities to pick and chose our backgrounds. And what we pick is an individual choice.
In many situations there ISN’T a lot of choice. For example in sports where action is involved and fast lenses can’t be avoided because we need the large apertures to get the speed high enough to avoid motion blur, those pics are gonna have a blurred background just by the circumstances of the genre being shot.
We’re acting a bit like elitist to proclaim any certain style is overused or as not really appropriate!
We went through the age of realism with the f64 club, where sharpness was in vogue. I take shots like that too but I also take shots where the foreground is all blur and the background is the subject and sharp. Or where the subject is in blur and the foreground is sharp etc.
When I have blur it’s pretty deliberate. When I don’t it’s also deliberate!
Everybody’s ability level is different. That’s why not everybody produces award winning photography consistently but some do and others never will. That does not mean that less experienced photographers don’t enjoy producing blur and sharpness as they see fit on their journeys to becoming masters of their trade, if they ever do.
I for one won’t tire of blur any more than I’ll tire of sharpness.