You don’t necessarily need an expensive camera for a deliberate blur in the background, also known as a bokeh effect. A smartphone is often enough for an interesting and blurred background. Most smartphone cameras already have portrait mode, which blurs the background around the person being photographed in a portrait image. So if there is intentional blurring in the background, it is the bokeh effect.
Sometimes a photo becomes really interesting when not all of the layers on it are in focus. However, this lack of focus depends on the desired control. You can create simple bokeh effects with any high-quality camera — and with little tricks even with your smartphone.
Put the focus on the foreground
The cameras of the smartphones usually have the positive property of adjusting themselves and photographing the motifs sharply. However, you still have a way to bypass this and create a blur effect.
Get very close to the subject. The camera of your smartphone then only has the opportunity to focus on this small section. This will make the background blurry and blurry.
The wonderful side effect is that the viewer still sees what is in the background. It is therefore important that you choose a beautiful background and that the color of this matches the actual motif in the foreground. The foreground motif must also stand out clearly.
The photo with the snowdrops clearly shows the intentional blurring. The pure white of the flower heads stand out strongly against the background. The colors from the foreground and background are harmoniously coordinated and at the same time the eye perceives the grass in the background and the moss on the ground.
If you don’t succeed with the bokeh effect right away, then it’s time to practice… practice… practice… as with almost all new techniques in life. This trains the eye and is also a lot of fun. Try different motifs and colors and remember, many small miracles are not at eye level, but close to the ground or in the treetops.
Of course, if you like, you can also download an app for the bokeh effect onto your smartphone. These apps simulate shallow depth of field using a blurred background.
The skilful play between sharpness and blurriness
After you have a selection of these great photos with the bokeh effect on your smartphone’s memory card, you will definitely want to look at them or show them off more often.
Of course, special photos also deserve a special presentation:
Preferably with a scrapbooking. Scrapbooks are a more creative form of Design of photo albums. So instead of just showing glued-in photos one after the other, scrapbooks tell little stories. Use colored background paper, small accessories or memorabilia to keep the pages interesting and invite you to linger and look at the photos.
I like to use it for scrapbooks spiral albums. They are tied in the form of a spiral using a specially twisted wire. You may have noticed that the diameter of the spiral often seems oversized on a new album and this actually doesn’t fit the ratio of the album’s thickness at all. But that’s how it has to be. Because when you start the album with pictures and small accessories in the form of Stickers, tickets or other reminders design, you will quickly notice how the album increases in height.
For this scrapbook we once again emphasized the difference between sharpness and blurring with the background paper with the clear stripes. This brings the bokeh effect of the snowdrops even more into focus.
Just start…
Even if this type of page design sounds a bit complicated at this moment, I can assure you that it is really very easy to implement. Just start, you will quickly notice that you will get more and more ideas for creative design in no time at all. And now, HAVE FUN!
