Indian, I believe. Means "blur", or something akin to that. Pronounced "boh-kay" but, generally speaking, colloquialised as "bow-ke". It doesn't refer to background blur so much as a "pattern of background blur produced by the combination of lens elements and aperture leaves on the given lens" and how those factors refract points of light into pleasing shapes.
bokeh such a wonderful discussion point for photographers.
Whenever I meet a fellow photographer and we are discussing Bokeh, we always end up sitting there saying the word over and over like a bunch of idiots, just trying to figure out how to pronounce it properly :p
Hahaha, this is great. Its bothered me for some time. Anyone old enough to remember not having the internet should also be confused by this term. As a high school student in the US, this term was never used. Same in university. So the first time I heard people using it I felt as though I missed something in school.
@Martin LOL! Yes @Robert, I should have Wikipedia'd it. Wikipedia says:
The term comes from the Japanese word boke (暈け or ボケ), which means "blur" or "haze", or boke-aji (ボケ味), the "blur quality". The Japanese term boke is also used in the sense of a mental haze or senility.[7]
The English spelling bokeh was popularized in 1997 in Photo Techniques magazine, when Mike Johnston, the editor at the time, commissioned three papers on the topic for the March/April 1997 issue; he altered the spelling to suggest the correct pronunciation to English speakers, saying "it is properly pronounced with bo as in bone and ke as in Kenneth, with equal stress on either syllable".[2] Bokeh replaced the previous spelling boke that had been in use at least since 1996, when Merklinger had also suggested "or Bokeh if you prefer."[8]
The term bokeh has appeared in photography books at least since 1998.[3] It is sometimes pronounced /ˈboʊkə/ (boke-uh[9]).
Thanks everybody - now all I have to do is create some in my photos.
@vikdaddy LOL! I was just going by a magazine article I read recently. I'll see if I can find it, because it disputed the Japanese origin. Not that the magazine is necessarily right (the Wiki article referrred to here and also in the magazine has some good sources for its claims), but it made sense to me at the time.
Still, I've been wrong before. You should have seen the chaos resulting from my suggestion that the plane of focus is actually an arc!
Tweets ahoy!
Join the Group
Pin With Me
ボケ味 means something like blur quality...
Rising sun seconded, have fun with it no matter the origin.
bokeh such a wonderful discussion point for photographers.
Whenever I meet a fellow photographer and we are discussing Bokeh, we always end up sitting there saying the word over and over like a bunch of idiots, just trying to figure out how to pronounce it properly :p
The term comes from the Japanese word boke (暈け or ボケ), which means "blur" or "haze", or boke-aji (ボケ味), the "blur quality". The Japanese term boke is also used in the sense of a mental haze or senility.[7]
The English spelling bokeh was popularized in 1997 in Photo Techniques magazine, when Mike Johnston, the editor at the time, commissioned three papers on the topic for the March/April 1997 issue; he altered the spelling to suggest the correct pronunciation to English speakers, saying "it is properly pronounced with bo as in bone and ke as in Kenneth, with equal stress on either syllable".[2] Bokeh replaced the previous spelling boke that had been in use at least since 1996, when Merklinger had also suggested "or Bokeh if you prefer."[8]
The term bokeh has appeared in photography books at least since 1998.[3] It is sometimes pronounced /ˈboʊkə/ (boke-uh[9]).
Thanks everybody - now all I have to do is create some in my photos.
Still, I've been wrong before. You should have seen the chaos resulting from my suggestion that the plane of focus is actually an arc!
and yes it's a japanese word meaning blur! ^___^
nice read! =)