Got Bokeh?

In portrait photography,  aperture and depth of field are your best buddies.  With their help you can do magic in the form of  "bokeh".   The term bokeh comes from the Japanese word boke  (暈け or ボケ) which means to "blur" or "haze" and is pronounced "bouquet".    

Basically, bokeh is achieved when your subject is in focus and everything else it out of focus.  In photography this is referred to as having a shallow depth of field and is best done using a telephoto lens with an extremely large aperture.   Ideally an aperture of 3.5 or higher is necessary to achieve true bokeh.  Unfortunately,  to get a lens with a high aperture this high you need to spend some "moola" pronouned "moo-la".  

 Check out some examples which were I shot using what many feel is Canon's best all around lens, 

the EF 70-200L IS lens which was set at f2.8.

The wall behind Noah is completely out of focus.

Behind Courtney is a Maple Tree in full Fall bloom.

That is a downtown building behind Noah.

Behind Emily is a combination of shrubs and grey sky.