One of my resolutions is to learn to do more with my camera than just picking it up, pointing it at someone, and snapping a picture. I’ve gotten better at that, but I’ve had an obsession lately with one particular thing – bokeh.

Bokeh is a word I had never even heard until about a couple of weeks ago, though I had seen it many times before. It’s the effect that you get when you set your camera so that the subject is in sharp focus but the background is blurred. It makes your subject stand out more. I could do it in Photoshop, but I wanted to learn how to do it properly with my actual camera.

That meant learning a lot of things that in the past would have come out sounding like the teachers on Charlie Brown episodes – “muh muh muh muh muh muh…” However, after spending a lot of my “free time” (whatever THAT is) on various photography sites and digital photography sites in particular, I am not getting a very basic grasp of things like Depth of Focus, apertures, ISO, and more. Just don’t ask me to explain them yet, I’m not at a level of understanding where I can adequately explain.

But I do know that if I ever want to graduate to a DSLR (and oh, how I want to!), I’d better be able to understand what I’m doing because I really feel it would be an incredible waste to get something like a Nikon D-series camera or a Canon Rebel only to keep it on the Auto setting all the time.

And I think I’m finally getting somewhere. This isn’t as striking a difference as I’d eventually like, but the background is definitely blurred while the mini lava lamp (found in my stocking from my parents, and man I love that more than anyone over age 13 probably should) is in focus.

Anyone with good sites to recommend for learning more about how to really use a camera rather than just pointing and shooting? I’d love to check them out!