Heart-shaped bokeh

Mike Harris shows you how to transform bokeh into almost any shape you like using a homemade aperture disc

- Mike Harris

Bokeh derives from the Japanese word ‘boke’, which means blur. It’s used in the photography industry to describe the out-offocus specular highlights you see time and time again in images, such as portraits or still life.

Bokeh is often achieved by focusing on a subject that’s separated from a concentrated light source (like a string of LED lights). By shooting at a wide aperture to create a shallow depth of field, lights in the background blur into prominent blobs of bokeh. Narrower apertures are still capable of capturing bokeh, but the superwide apertures of fast lenses are known for producing the creamy depths of field where these attractive specs of blur thrive.

Not all bokeh is exactly the same shape though. You may notice images with spherical, hexagonal, or even pentagonal forms of bokeh. The shape is determined by a number of factors including the number of aperture blades in a lens, the shape of those aperture blades, and the aperture being used. It’s therefore possible to manipulate bokeh shapes by introducing a whole new aperture.

In this tutorial we’re going to show you how to make an aperture disc that will sit on the front element of your lens and transform the bokeh you capture. We created a simple love heart, but you can use almost any shape you like. All you need is some thick black paper and a few craft utensils.

Make a DIY aperture disc

1 Black card