You’ve been cooped up for awhile, but maybe even before Covid you thought about it … even dreamt about it. Have you heard about Bokeh, but more importantly how much do you care about it? It’s become an omnipresent force on the Internet, and most likely it is of critical importance at most technically oriented camera clubs, along with RAW, megapixels and other digitalia. Do you worship at the altar of Bokeh, reading about it incessantly on the Internet? Have you become so obsessed that you only think about shooting wide open, which in turn causes you to make lens purchasing decisions based on how many blades are used in their diaphragms?  Worse yet, do you buy many different lenses of the same focal length so you can test them to determine which if any provide the elusive Bokeh you crave?

Do you dare to read on?

Is it properly pronounced bo-keh, or bo-key, or bo-kay? Who knows, but according to Wikipedia, the term comes from the Japanese word boke (暈け or ボケ), which means  “blur” or “haze”. It’s become an entire subject of photography. So very critical, that for many it is just as important as the subject itself. This really should not be too surprising. It enables people who really are not terribly serious about making photographs that truly matter to stay occupied in the pursuit of what they mistakenly think is important verses getting out there and doing something of real value.  If you have seen any one of the myriad of discussions out there, they are often accompanied by pictures of cute pussycats, vases with or without flowers, or the ever exciting backyard bird … all made with very expensive lenses. High art indeed!

Bokeh has become mystical, cult-like and a photographic religion.  Best I can tell it is all about the quality or “creaminess” of blurry out of focus areas in the photograph that seem to be as important as the subject matter itself. Heaven forbid your Bokeh not be soft and creamy, made up of the dreaded heptagonal shaped reflected points of light instead of smooth round circles of light that contain no hard edges!

Stop the madness already!

Do you think that Adams, Weston(s), Strand, Cartier-Bresson, Frank, Winogrand, Smith  … I could go on and on … would give a flying fig about Bokeh?  The answer is NO! Let’s think about this for a moment. When the many “decisive moments” came for HCB do think he thinking about circles vs. heptagons? NO! I am sure he used his Summicron because it had an overall look and feel he admired, but I suspect he didn’t loose very much sleep over out of focus creaminess.

For those obsessed with Bokeh it will be all right. Just use the lens you have. Its quality is probably as good or better in many ways than which was available to the great masters. So take a deep breath. Concentrate on making pictures of importance rather than worry about soft creaminess and how much you need to spend to get it.

Bokeh, Schmokeh!

You want creaminess; go get some ice cream with high butterfat content. Now that’s something to obsess about!

I think I’ll go test some Häagen-Dazs and Ben and Jerry’s! And then maybe a comparison with Cold Stone Creamery and then I’ll try …

Oh, I forgot to mention … I heard there is a new flavor taking ice cream world by storm … Bokeh Schmokeh.

Stay safe,

Michael