It's never too late to learn My way to black and white photography I am in my 40`s now and started photography only three years ago. It is quite old for starting photography (or any art) compared with photographers who grew-up with a camera in hand. Inside the photographic knowledge, there is the practice and […]
Difficult question for some people no brainer for other, the question is quiet controversial in the photographic world.
Should I shoot with a small aperture or a large one, which effect I want to give to my picture or which is my taste in term of final rendering ? The last one is the most critical, bokeh is a matter of taste most of the time. And considering time the more you grow with photography the more you will have to not bokeh. But it is depending also on the type of photography you like, if you like macro or like to take little flowers, the more chance you have to continue with bokeh as it should emphasis on the subject you are shooting at. But on the other hand, if you like street or architecture you may don’t have bokeh on your picture as the whole elements should have a meaning or a purpose to your final goal for your picture.
Most difficult genre is the portrait one and here it is really a question of taste in my opinion, oh, sometimes your background is not great so you don’t want to have it appearing too much in the photo you are taking, but the choice of a background is also a great matter in your aesthetics to the the final result, therefore in that case bokeh is not welcome, not necessary as you should not have anything to hide. By example if you take the great Mark Steinmetz, you will see that mostly everything is in focus, all elements are appearing in a candid way but not simplistic and the list is very long of renown photographer avoiding it or using it very little touch (Patrick Joust, Alec Soth, Todd Hido,…)
Yes in my opinion bokeh should only be used to hide something (OK sometimes you have to, especially in low light siuation) and not to give some flavor to your picture. You will use bokeh when you start using your camera as at first you have somehow the « whaou » effect but this should become borring after a while, unless I mentionned you are in particular genre of photography, bokeh is not really good but that’s my taste, I don’t try to convert anybody, I am just explaining my point of view, in other words Bokeh is there to hide your non-competency of taking picture.