The third in the Photographer’s Playground series took the MVPC members to well-decorated neighborhoods in Rosemount, Minnesota to hone their skills creating bokeh, or pleasing background blur.

“The objective is to learn how the choice of lenses impact your image background. Participants learned how compression, depth of field and camera steadiness are affected by lens choice.

“It is said that the background can make or break a photo. One way to manage the background is to create a pleasing blur. We can also get really creative when there are lights, reflective surfaces, or repetitive objects in the background. During this session, we will take advantage of the holiday light displays. Holiday lights turn to multi-color dots which can greatly enhance a photo. We will look for either a city display, or a well decorated neighborhood to photograph. We will also experiment with using bokeh to essential make distracting background elements less distracting. – Don Tredennick