Before stowing away the decorations from this last Christmas I would like to share with you a photo technique called bokeh. Small sources of light in the back- or foreground transform into round or polygonal areas of light. This can create a special mood which suits the season well.
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One evening when I looked out of my window I realized that I could use the lights of Volda, the place where I live, to create a special picture with the bokeh-technique. The window was decorated with stars made of straw. I placed my tripod about 50 cm away from the window and used manual focus and a wide aperture (f 1.4) to get only a little depth of sharpness. Only my motive is sharp, the lights in the background appear as round areas of light.
My camera settings: 0,3 sec, f 1.4, ISO 200
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The result pleased me, but I continued to do some further experiments. I changed the lens focus and, what a surprise, the star became an almost artistic object. Though I missed the sharpness of the star I loved this effect and decided not to change it.
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| The post processing I did in the Lightroom-program. I think the star looks better with a quadratic form, therefore I cropped the picture. Some little adjustments for contrast and brightness, and I was pleased about the result.By using the bokeh-technique I could combine the star motive and the lights in the background to create a picture with a particular seasonal mood. |  |