The Visual Toolbox: 60 Lessons for Stronger Photographs

Lesson 16. Use Focus to Abstract

We most often notice bokeh, a word I feel self-conscious writing, much less speaking aloud, as the shape of out-of-focus highlights in the background of an image. It can be beautiful, but we often relegate it to a happy byproduct of the photograph we’re making of something else, some other element in the foreground, instead of the very point of the image. Using the aesthetic possibilities of out-of-focus elements, we’re able to reduce sharp line and form to something less specific, something more abstract. There are other ways to do it, but using a lack of focus can be as powerful a way to abstract as any other.

Canon 5D Mk II, 90–200mm, 1/60 @ f/2.8, ISO 100Shot wide open (f/2.8) and out of focus, the elements ...