Holiday bokeh

I thought the blurry tree looked kind cool. Sometimes photo mistakes are art in disguise.

You'd probably never be able to tell but this is a shot of the tree as well. Looks more like fireworks.

This is one of our new ornaments from the Scandinavian store in the mall. We bought a little box full of nifty straw ornaments like this. I hope having decorations like this on the tree will make up for the fact that we (the kids and I) prefer to have the Christmas tree up right away in December instead of waiting until the day before Christmas, which is tradition for Andreas. It is nice to be able to enjoy the glow from a cozy tree in the living room during the entire holiday season.

A popular photo during Christmas is one involving lots of wonderful "bokeh". There is speculation as to the proper way to pronounce bokeh. Even though I've read it's pronounced "bow - kay" as in a bouquet of flowers, I can't get past just calling it "bow - kuh". Anyway, bokeh refers to the pleasing, out of focus blur in a picture. In the picture above, the background lights from the Christmas tree provide bokeh in the form of large white circles.

I like the bokeh in this picture. Generally good bokeh results from a wide aperture. I think in this picture my aperture was at f/2.2. Holiday bokeh is stunning, isn't it?

I need to go play with my camera a little more.