Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dangerspouse" data-source="post: 749352" data-attributes="member: 46690">For this week's challenge, "Bokeh", I wanted to try Front Bokeh as I've always liked the effect since seeing it on some fashion shoot vid a year or so ago. Up til then when I wanted bokeh I always reflexively put it behind the subject. It's nice, but I think it's nifty when some of the bokeh circles cover the subject but are transparent enough to just give a color cast. I wanted to get my wife to sit for this, but she wasn't having it <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite11" alt=":rolleyes:" title="Roll eyes    :rolleyes:" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":rolleyes:" /> . So I got the next most human thing in our house: a giant nutcracker crafted from clay flower pots. He got stood on a chair in front of our dining room curtains with two soft boxes trained at 45 degree angles. A bit of a Dutch Angle tilt with the tripod, as pure vertical was kind of uninteresting. For the bokeh, I grabbed a string of Christmas lights.The first string of lights were all white (the colored string was in the attic and I was too lazy to dig them out). However they were tiny LED lights mounted flush against the sockets like little baby spotlights. No protrusion at all so they sent out very directional beams. I had to work to get them all pointed at the lens, or they wouldn't show. After numerous frustrating attempts, I finally got several at once oriented the correct way and took the shot:[ATTACH]349919[/ATTACH]Because they were so tiny they had to be pushed almost right up to the lens glass, and that created the problem of making the wires visible as dark shadows between them that you can see. Additionally, I didn't find it very festive. Time to stop being lazy. Up the attic I went.The more traditional lights were much easier to work with, and I liked the multitude of colors, but here too I had to be careful not to let the wires get enough light on them to ruin the shot:[ATTACH]349920[/ATTACH]That was caused by the light string being held too far from the lens. Far enough that the wires were being illuminated by the edges of the soft boxes. It took some finagling, but I did eventually figure out how to keep a mat of loose lights fairly flat and find the sweet spot to hold them between the lens and the light source. I took about 10 decent shots, and this one ended up being the one I thought had the best distribution of lights for the composition. It's the one I entered:[ATTACH]349921[/ATTACH]That was a fun challenge. Kudos to last week's winner Peter7100 for suggesting it!</blockquote>

Verification