Saturday, April 02, 2011

|{ Selfie Saturday- Focus (Bokeh) }|

Sigh, I am so disappointed.  I was so looking forwards to this week's Selfie.  The theme was focus with a more specific goal of 'bokeh'.  To quote lovely Elena, "For those not up on the lingo, Bokeh is the blur we get shooting at large apertures, specifically those beautiful light spots as a background that gather in clusters and give any photo a magical feel."

I am one of those 'not up on the lingo' people and I was excited to try this one! I even had planned out what I wanted to do, part of which included also practicing my model eyes from a few weeks ago.

However, the first few days of the week I kept putting if off because it was a little cold and I had plenty of time, right? Well wrong.  It started to get cloudy and even colder and my husband needed the tripod for a project at school so I didn't have it towards the end of the week, so I couldn't (easily anyway) do the outside shoot I had hoped for.  I also didn't really know how to go about shooting a bokeh photo.

I am NOT a total slacker though, just almost.  I DID pull out my camera and play around with the settings to try to figure out how to get those adorable light balls and when I finally figured it out I realized why exactly this challenge was placed into the focus theme! Because you need to focus on something in the foreground in order to get the little blurred balls in the background.

Anyway, long story short, hubby still has the tripod at school and I never got around to taking a picture, FAIL! BUT, I will STILL be doing this one, just a little late! :)

I also have been coming up with a lot of other selfie photo shoots that I would like to do so I'm excited for those too! :)

Here are the pictures I took trying to figure out how to use bokeh.  I was in the car waiting to pick hubby up from school one day.


Well that did nothing at all...



Sunspots, but not quite the same thing...


Blurry, but still not it....



There we go!! There are some bokeh spots! 

Now I just need to take some with me in it and hope they work out! I'm excited!!

Also, when I saw Elena's picture of her feet by the pool in her focus tutorial it reminded of a very similar picture I took about  2 years ago, so I went and dug it out and guess what! It has a little bokeh in it in the bush in the background! Sweet!



6 comments:

  1. AHAHAHAHA! I was laughing my butt off reading about your struggles! I am soo sorry, I should have thought to mention how to achieve bokeh. Sometimes I forget that not everyone here is a photographer. BUT, i think it's cool that you kept trying and finally figured it out on your own! That must feel good! And yes, you're right the picture of your feet- there's that beautiful bokeh!
    Even though you didn't take it this time, I still love it and you did try!

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  2. Ya know - I struggled the first part of the week (well all week) because it's been cold and raining here but I loved that you gave it a shot. Keep it up!

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  3. I struggled, too. I can do it when I'm photographing other things, but trying to get myself in the picture and focus and all without having a remote and tripod... there were just too many disastrous elements! :) You did an excellent job!

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  4. I am so proud of what you figured out that is awesome, I'm a photographer but I'm mostly self taught so I know trial and error, great job! btw, cute toes;)

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  5. Loving the polish- you did get some great bokeh in that shot!

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