Bokeh love...

*A repost from July 2010

"I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways. I will delight in your statutes; I will not forget your word."  ~ Psalm 119:15-16

Clearly, the majority of my photos are taken with a shallow depth of field that creates an out-of-focus background - a photography technique called bokeh, meaning blur. Some bokehs, or blurs, can be more appealing than the object in focus - like this one, with pearls of light that flow down the vine covered tree and dance across the tall grass, before tumbling over the fence.

Most of my bokehs are in the less attractive category. With the camera set on macro, I simply focus on an object and the rest becomes a hazy blur. 

 

Often my bokehs are an attempt to disguise or smooth the rough edges of unappealing objects in the background. My goal is to capture beauty and instill wonder without messy or unsightly distractions. If I focus correctly, the goal is achieved, and the aureolin beauty of a black-eyed susan can overshadow a weedy, littered ditch.

The analogy is obvious, don't you think? 

"Turn full your soul's vision to Jesus, and look at Him, and a strange dimness will come over all that is apart from Him, and the Divine 'attrait' by which God's saints are made, even in this 20th century, will lay hold of you. For 'He is worthy' to have all there is to be had in the heart that He has died to win." 

~ Focussed: A Story and a Song by Lilias Trotter

(Thank you for grace - I'm still coping with daily RA flares that consume my mornings, fog my brain and deplete my energy.)