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BOUQUET
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08-29-2007, 01:33 AM
"I first learned about "bo-ke" or boke in 1995, from Carl Weese, who learned about it from our mutual friend the oracular and extreme Oren Grad, who holds eight Master's degrees, three Ph.D.s, and an M.D., and who evidently taught himself Japanese so he could read Japanese photo magazines. (Perhaps I exaggerate these facts, but only slightly.) I then commissioned and published three articles about it in the March/April 1997 issue of Photo Techniques back when I was editor — one each by John Kennerdell, who is an American ex-pat living in Bangkok, Oren himself, and Harold Merklinger, a high-ranking research scientist in the Canadian defense establishment. It's one of the few issues of that magazine that sold out. My own contribution was...er, a letter. I decided that people too readily mispronounced "boke," so I added an "h" to the word in our articles, and voilá, "bokeh" was born. A Google search for the word "bokeh" just now resulted in approximately 13,300 hits. Seems the idea's gotten around."
More>>
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/columns/sm-04-04-04.shtml
http://www.rickdenney.com/bokeh_test.htm
http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/bokeh.htm
http://www.vanwalree.com/optics/bokeh.html
08-29-2007, 03:36 AM
Agreed, Sanjin. "Bo - Ke" is actually a good way to remember it (as long as you keep the sounds separate). AFAIK, Japanese is all about a series of consonant-vowel combos (With occasional vowels). Bruce in Japanese is "Bu - Ru - Su". Sanjin would be "Sa(n) - Ji - Nu" (mandatory to add a vowel to the end). Evin would be "Ev - i - nu"... "Sha - Wu - Nu" "Cu - Ru - Tu" etc... Jaagdy, I'm working on yours, bro... how do I say your name in English properly?
Credit for this rudimentary Japanese understanding goes entirely to my Japanese girlfriend. I'll ask her about Bokeh when she has a moment. She's working long hours directing / editing "making of" features for crazy air freshener commecials right now though ;) How much more Japanese can you get than a crazy air freshener commercial? With singing, of course...
It looked like they were mixing film & HD cameras, though - so not sure about the bokeh ;)
Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
08-29-2007, 04:17 AM
hahaha nice post, Bruce. Jaadgy would be the same as in English "Jah-Jee" (with a strong J as in "judge"), without the u at the end 'cause it ends with a vowel.Originally Posted by Bruce Allen
08-29-2007, 04:33 AM
I always said it like "poker", but you don't pronounce the "r" too much. Saying Bouquet sounds weird to me.
08-29-2007, 04:40 AM
By the way about SANJIN in Japan:
"Sanjin is a god of the mountain in Sugawa
and also is thought to be a guardian of silk worms. There is a festival
on the eighty-eighth day from the New Year, and the shrine ground is
buried with visitors from nearby counties."
Sanjin Festival Sugawa, Strolling in Ueda>>More>>LINK
I could make a good career in Japan!?
08-29-2007, 04:50 AM
Just an observation here, from someone reading the words of cinematographers since he was a teenager in the late '70's...
...Bokeh is to photography what Portobello mushrooms and extra virgin olive oil are to cooking.. the trendy "in" thing of the moment.
Go pull out back issues of American Cinematographer from the 60's/70's/80's and try to find one DP mentioning bokeh, or referring to the effect by any other name... I dare you all. Today, every youngling with an DV camcorder spouts off about bokeh before he will even tell you his name.
While you're there doing research on bokeh, you might as well check out how many old school DP's mention shallow depth of field as a desirable trait or a characteristic that they actively pursued in their work. From what I've been able to see, exploiting DOF emerged more from commercial photography than from the movies.
Can't wait to see what's gonna replace bokeh in a few years... I almost feel sorry for "breathing", as it never had a chance with exotic "bokeh" waiting in the wings to replace "shallow DOF"...
I'm only half joking here...
08-29-2007, 05:29 AM
Excellent, Jah - Jee - san!
Absolutely! You will be mobbed with admirers. They love that stuff ;)I could make a good career in Japan!?
Totally agree. Going by your same reasoning pattern (taking a cue from the still world now), my guess is it will be DPs talking about various subtle / nuanced digital filters that are applied in post (maybe with realtime preview in camera)? I took a look at those back in my computer programming days. We are just at the beginning stages of some interesting stuff. Of course, on the other hand, we already have everything we need right now ;) It'll become like microphones and esoteric amps in the recording world, methinks...
Eg various skin softening, subtle pearlescence, HDR local contrast simulation, perceptual detail enhancement, hyper-accurate image-based film emulsion simulations... kinda like what we have now but more subtle and more immediate. There's going to debates about the organic feel of various algorithms, color space processing options (do I sharpen in LAB / YUV space or RGB space? Do I prefer my blurs in linear color space?), their suitability to the various sensor types, etc. Not to say that we'll get that technical (just as we don't need to know lens design to talk about bokeh) - but the aesthetics produced by different variations of those underlying technologies might be what DPs might pontificate about in the future? Learning, AI, image-based algorithms too. DPs will talk about matching a specially-trained "XYZ labs" filter to a particular actress's face... when what they should have just been doing was get the producer to hire a better makeup artist ;)
It'll be interesting to see how much is looking forwards and how much is looking backwards.
Okay, need to get off the forums and pack some suitcases now... what an excellent trove of info the Red forums are, and such nice and knowledgeable people too. Make cool films, Red users! Look forward to reading tons more cool posts from all of my old friends when I find the internet again ;) And please take care of yourselves. I want to have the pleasure of meeting you all some day.
Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
08-29-2007, 07:42 AM
Bon voyage Bruce, you take care as well.
08-29-2007, 07:53 AM
To be fair (and I totally agree with your points re: overuse of the word bokeh!), that's a technology/format related issue, not trend related. If you look back to the 70's (or even way earlier, to the 50's at least) you will find cinematographers discussing manipulation of DoF - just the other way! For a famous instance, the cinematography in Citizen Kane is lauded for it's (very deliberate) use of almost exclusively deep DoF - something very difficult to achieve in those days with the film, lenses and lighting equipment available. Getting a shallow DoF was never a problem, as everyone was shooting on 35mm!!
Now, fast forward to the current day, and all but the absolute top-end of professionals are shooting on formats smaller than 35mm - 2/3" SD/HD, Super-16, 1/3" DV/HDV/Etc... So the problem for today's cinematographers (especially the up and coming ones) is attaining a shallow DoF instead of a deep one. The issue of manipulating DoF has not changed, just the direction of the problem!...
There is, of course, an associated "cinematic feel" to shallow DoF, but that's simply because it's associated with the larger format for the above reasons - I certainly like to use shallow DoF on occasions, but I also like a fantastic composition in deep DoF - all techniques are good techniques when used well and for the right reasons, and bad techniques when not!
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