25 Beautiful Examples of Bokeh Photography

A photograph can communicate the visual detail of a scene in a way difficult to capture in words. After all, they don’t say for anything that a picture is worth a thousand words.

The Japanese are an incredible people with a rich culture and beautiful art. They have a unique approach to everything from poetry to photography. Bokeh is a style of Japanese photography that allows the world to fade away while bringing one specific subject into perfect clarity down to the last detail.

More specifically, bokeh photography is defined as a photography effect achieved by shooting a subject with a fast lens set to the widest aperture. You’ll then wind up with a soft, out-of-focus background that’s slightly blurred and produces an aesthetically pleasing effect. The faster the aperture, the better your bokeh will turn out, so ideally, your camera lens should have an f/2, f/1.8, or f/1.4 aperture.

The size and the shape of the bokeh are determined by the shape of the blades that make up the aperture of the lens. If your lens has more circular-shaped blades, the resulting bokeh effect will be rounder and softer. Contrary to that, a lens with more hexagonal blades will result in hexagonal bokeh.

This gallery has a curated collection of bokeh photography that truly captures the beautiful details of life, great and small. Use them to get familiar with the bokeh style photography or inspiration for your next photoshoot.