## Definition
Bokeh (pronounced “bo-kay” or “bo-keh,” and yes, photographers will absolutely judge you for saying it wrong) is the aesthetic quality of the blur produced in out-of-focus parts of an image. The term comes from the Japanese word “boke,” meaning “blur” or “haze,” and was popularized in photography circles to describe something that lens engineers had been fighting for decades—unintentional blur becoming an intentional artistic choice.
Technically, bokeh is determined by the shape of a camera’s aperture blades. A circular aperture produces smooth, creamy bokeh. A hexagonal aperture produces busier, more geometric bokeh. In the age of smartphone photography, computational bokeh attempts to simulate this effect through software, with results that range from surprisingly good to “this person appears to have a halo of smeared pixels around their head.”
## Why it matters
Bokeh matters because it represents one of photography’s fundamental creative tensions: what you exclude from an image is often as important as what you include. By throwing backgrounds into creamy oblivion, photographers can isolate subjects, create mood, direct attention, and transform ordinary scenes into something that feels cinematic.
The obsession with bokeh also reveals something about how photography culture evolves. What was once considered a lens flaw—soft, out-of-focus areas—became desirable, then fetishized, then memed. Entire internet communities formed around sharing “bokehlicious” images. Lens reviews dedicate paragraphs to describing a lens’s bokeh “character.” Some photographers spend thousands of dollars on lenses specifically because they render out-of-focus highlights as perfect circles rather than geometric shapes.
## Example
A classic bokeh photograph might show a portrait subject in sharp focus while the background dissolves into soft, glowing orbs of light. Street photographers use bokeh to isolate a single face in a crowd. Nature photographers use it to turn busy forests into impressionist paintings of green and gold. The effect is particularly striking at night, where out-of-focus city lights become floating spheres of color—what photographers sometimes call “bokeh balls.”
## Internet Angle
Bokeh culture exploded on platforms like Tumblr, Flickr, and eventually Instagram. The hashtag #bokeh has millions of posts across social media. Photography blogs and YouTube channels produce endless content debating which lenses produce the “best” bokeh, as if there were an objective standard for subjective blur quality.
The term “bokehlicious”—used to describe images with particularly pleasing out-of-focus areas—became part of photography internet slang. Lensblr and other photography communities hosted endless discussions about “nervous” bokeh (too busy), “creamy” bokeh (smooth and desirable), and “cat’s eye” bokeh (the distortion that occurs at frame edges). Phone manufacturers now list “bokeh mode” as a selling point, using multiple lenses and AI to simulate what expensive glass used to provide.
## Related Terms
– **Depth of field**: The zone of acceptable sharpness in an image, which determines bokeh intensity
– **Aperture**: The opening in a lens that controls light and depth of field
– **Bokehlicious**: Internet slang for exceptionally pleasing bokeh
– **Portrait mode**: Smartphone feature that simulates bokeh computationally
– **Fast lens**: A lens with a wide maximum aperture, prized for bokeh capabilities