boke and Japanese aesthetics

[Theodor Heinrichsohn]

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Michael Johnston, now editor of TOP, was the first to 'Americanize' the term by adding the 'h'.  He has written several articles explaining the background, as here...

http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2009/01/what-is-bokeh.html

 

As he explains, he's tired of the sometimes controversial nature of the term, and now usually just calls it blur.

 

Jeff

 

 

Thanks for this info. I first came into contact with the term "boke" during the late 1970ties/early 1980ties while  visiting Japan and later on living in Tokyo from 1986 to 1994. I was a member of the Leica Club and the term boke was used all the time.

I understood it to mean that out of focus parts of the picture did not "crack up", i.e. round objects remained discernible as round objects, squares as squares, lines as lines etc. I recall that I tried out some Leica lenses by photographing a row of pingpong balls, placed at a regular distance of about 10 cm or so in a straight line and holding the camera at an angle. Using different apertures and focusing on the first ball, then the second and so on, the results showed the lenses' rendition of a round object at different distances and at different apertures. 

Some lenses rendered the in focus and gradual out of focus images of the balls in a manner that balls remained balls and the outlines remained discernible as balls together with an effect that suggested 3-dimensional objects, while other lenses tended to render the balls with a flatter look suggesting less volume and more a flat round surface. In some cases the images "broke up" and were only discernible as blotches.

I tried to find the negatives (b&w Technical PAN) but failed to do so, so I am quoting from memory, which is probably not really accurate after so long a time. 

I therefore regret that I can't be more specific.

Teddy

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[grillo]

The Japanese referred to the style of some late sixties, early seventies photographers as are-bure-boke (grainy, blurry, and out-of-focus), maybe that's from where it was borrowed by Carl Weese and Mike Johnston.

[adan]

Theodor has the best take. This was a concept that became popular in Japan decades before it was publicized and popularized in the West during the 1990s. Really, it took the internet to start (literally) spreading the word.

 

After all, long before Japanese cars were taken seriously, the Japanese optical industry was the creme-de-la-creme of the country, and all Japanese took pride in it, and played with it, and basked in its glow. So it was hugely important in their culture - including the aesthetics of optics.

 

Western photographers definitely understood the concept of isolating the subject by blur long before then. I remember when it first became the rage for the fashion photographers to grab hold of the sport photographers' 300mm f/2.8s, for the visual effect.

 

As he makes clear, while "boke" may literally mean "blur" - in this context it referred to the visual characteristics or quality of the blur, not just the existence of blur itself.

 

To use the wine analogy - all wines have a smell. Once one starts analyzing the aesthetic characteristics of the smell, one can speak of the "bouquet." (If one wants to )

 

Any lens can blur a background or foreground. Some lenses (even at identical focal lengths, apertures, and distances) may produce different types of blur. "Cracked up" or smooth. Retaining the natural shaped of the blurred objects - or turning everything into circles (mirror lens, or 35 Summicron V.4 @ f/2).

 

You can have more or less blur, depending on focal length and aperture used - you cannot have "more" or "less" boke, only differing forms of boke.

 

Outside of the obvious "difference" between a regular 500mm telephoto and a 500mm mirror lens, most Westerners did not put a lot of mental effort into boke. Until the concept was imported from Japan, and popularized.

[pico]

After all, long before Japanese cars were taken seriously, the Japanese optical industry was the creme-de-la-creme of the country, and all Japanese took pride in it, and played with it, and basked in its glow. So it was hugely important in their culture - including the aesthetics of optics.

 

We had a significant number of Japanese students at the university, and there is/was a big difference of aesthetics between them and the American students.  If you wanted to see it in real life, just be in a super market trying to get to the big bin of apples as the Japanese girls ever so slowly and carefully scrutinized them to find the most perfect.

[120]

The Japanese referred to the style of some late sixties, early seventies photographers as are-bure-boke (grainy, blurry, and out-of-focus), maybe that's from where it was borrowed by Carl Weese and Mike Johnston.

 

 

Thanks...I referred to this in post 1 and as far as I know, this had nothing to do with blur "quality".

[120]

We had a significant number of Japanese students at the university, and there is/was a big difference of aesthetics between them and the American students.  If you wanted to see it in real life, just be in a super market trying to get to the big bin of apples as the Japanese girls ever so slowly and carefully scrutinized them to find the most perfect.

 

 

Thanks, this is what I wanted to find out about...whether the cult of boke is related to earlier Japanese visual arts and aesthetics. If so, to get references. 

[Peter Kilmister]

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The last time I went to the USA the apples looked fantastic, so perfect that they couldn't be left on the shelf. Good marketing ploy ... I bought a load.

They tasted like blotting paper soaked in apple juice.

Eyes over experience.

 

A good apple has bite. It has acidity. It has texture. It might have a blotch or three on the skin. Who cares?

Experience over eyes. Taste is more important with apples, pears, grapes, and wine

 

Same with blur, boke, bokeh, bouquet, bucket, etc.

 

If you have to carry a plate camera to the top of the hill to capture a perfect scene and have only one chance while the weather is clement then you are not going to arse around with trying to get fancy effects.

Take the picture and move on.

 

There is no way I want to mess about with blur as a priority. If it happens, it happens. The picture is the objective. How often did H.C.B. make blur his priority?

There is a reason why lenses go to f/16 or f/22. Don't forget that end as well as f/0.95.

[grillo]

Thanks, this is what I wanted to find out about...whether the cult of boke is related to earlier Japanese visual arts and aesthetics. If so, to get references. 

 

Maybe what you are looking for is the concept of yohaku, the margin, the empty space. Through the influence of Zen Buddhism in the middle ages in China and Japan in some schools of painting they painted simple images towards the margins of the paper, leaving ample empty space as background. The idea was that the focus in those paintings was not the painted figures, but the empty space, a space for meditation, and the figures were there only to make this empty space visible. See for example:

 

http://www.aisf.or.jp/~jaanus/deta/y/yohaku.htm

[120]

Maybe what you are looking for is the concept of yohaku, the margin, the empty space. Through the influence of Zen Buddhism in the middle ages in China and Japan in some schools of painting they painted simple images towards the margins of the paper, leaving ample empty space as background. The idea was that the focus in those paintings was not the painted figures, but the empty space, a space for meditation, and the figures were there only to make this empty space visible. See for example:

 

http://www.aisf.or.jp/~jaanus/deta/y/yohaku.htm

 

 

Thank you so much for this Grillo--that is exactly what I wanted! I had read somewhere of a Japanese way of "reading" an image beginning with the background, and I have been looking through Barthes trying to pick up a Buddhist connection. I really appreciate the information.

[joeswe]

 

As he makes clear, while "boke" may literally mean "blur" - in this context it referred to the visual characteristics or quality of the blur, not just the existence of blur itself.

 

To use the wine analogy - all wines have a smell. Once one starts analyzing the aesthetic characteristics of the smell, one can speak of the "bouquet." (If one wants to )

 

This is a very good point and reminds me that an expression I often encounter on Japanese websites is "boke-aji" ボケ味 ("aji" meaning "taste", "flavor"), which seems to be a more precise term than just "boke" when a person wants to stress that he/she is speaking about the aesthetic qualities of the blurred areas in a picture rather than pure technical or quantitative ones. Typical expressions are boke-aji ga kirei ("[lens draws/pictures shows] a beautiful blur(-taste)", or boke-aji ga ii, ("[lens draws/pictures shows] a good blur-taste, has a pleasant/tasty blur")

[a911s]

Boke is an internet phenomenon.  The word wasn't used much in the west before the 90s. It's the perfect topic because it is hard to objectively measure - so everyone can be an expert.  

 

 

Theodor has the best take. This was a concept that became popular in Japan decades before it was publicized and popularized in the West during the 1990s. Really, it took the internet to start (literally) spreading the word. 

[christoph_d]

One would need a lensed Camera Obscura. Giambattista della Porta was the first to use a lens in the middle sixteenth century.

The pinhole Camera Obscura, as you point out, is much older but exhibits an infinite DOF.

 

There are even suggestions that the principle was used in Palaeolithic cave paintings.

 

http://www.scientificjournals.org/Journals2011/articles/1515.pdf

 

 

Jaap,

 

To be nitpicking:

 

A pinhole camera actually has an optimal image distance, though it is true that in pravtice this is not observable due to the pronounced diffraction effects, etc...

 

If, in a pinhole camera, the distance of the image to the pinhole is shorter than the distance of the pinhole to the film, then a  unsharp effect does occur. So the "infinite DOF' starts once the image distance is larger than the film distance. While this effect in practical photography is almost never observed, it may explain why pinhole photography is not widely used for macro photography 

 

Rgds and thank you all for the illuminating discussion here.

 

Christoph

[MarkP]

This has been one of the more interesting and enlightening threads as of late.

[furcafe]

Thank you. It leaves open the possibility/likelihood this is not a Japanese concept.

I don't believe it's a Japanese concept, though they did coin the nice concise term "boke" for it.  Just like people have always taken pleasure in the misfortune of others, but the Germans came up w/"schadenfreude".  I don't have any references handy at the moment, but IIRC old cinematography texts from the 1920s & 30s discuss the quality of out of focus areas & I'm sure photographers have discussed it since the 19th century (especially given the narrow DoF of large format lenses), they just didn't have a specific word for it (at least in English).

[Peter Kilmister]

Correct, they had lots of words for 'it'. Probably not as long as the German words but, all the same, nothing specific.

[120]

Thank you. It leaves open the possibility/likelihood this is not a Japanese concept.

 

 

I don't believe it's a Japanese concept, though they did coin the nice concise term "boke" for it.  Just like people have always taken pleasure in the misfortune of others, but the Germans came up w/"schadenfreude".  I don't have any references handy at the moment, but IIRC old cinematography texts from the 1920s & 30s discuss the quality of out of focus areas & I'm sure photographers have discussed it since the 19th century (especially given the narrow DoF of large format lenses), they just didn't have a specific word for it (at least in English).

 

 

From the native speakers/photographers, it looks like "boke" was just used to mean blur.

 

The comment about 1920s-1930s is interesting; thanks. The oldest comment I've seen is about "ghost images"--reflected images of the aperture. I think the old-timers thought in terms of defects, not positive qualities of out-of-focus areas, but I don't know. They definitely wrote about DOF differently and it is not even clear where the modern treatment of DOF came from. It would seem like out-of-focus quality is the last thing on the 18th century photographer's mind, but I don't know for sure.

[120]

Edit: should be 19th century

[otho]

Maybe boke is some impressionistic idea (Monet, Renoir, etc.) or adopting from previous paintings, sc. by Claude Lorrain, A. Watteau, W.M. Turner ? Maybe even it derives from quattrocento... just look to famous Mona Lisa "boke" (sfumato) in a second plan: the mountains from fantastical "cosmic" perspective.

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica M

[Paul J]

Bokeh has little to do with Japanese aesthetic, it's simply a bastardised use one of their words.

 

Japanese aesthetic, mostly historical but also modern, is fine, sharp, graphic and representational, typically in two dimensions. It's the antithesis of what background blur represents, and is used for.

 

It is a fascination, a phenomenon and very often, a distraction. When utilised by the right craftsperson it is a very effective tool, but it is also sudden death for a photo when used without thought or any kind of purpose other than to dress up a photo and shroud it in faux presence.

[Exodies]

If one wanted faux presence (as opposed to the other kind) as a component of one's vision for a photograph, how would one go about achieving it?