I’ve been dying to write about this for ages, and now that there are fairy-lights everywhere it seems like the perfect time to create some custom-shaped bokeh!

OK, so ‘bokeh’ is one of those unnecessarily nerdy words that photography geeks like to bandy around – although that said, I really can’t think of a more efficient way of describing the roundish-blobs of light that represent out-of-focus points of light in a photograph. You can see it here in the gaps of the branches…

To emphasize the bokeh… (oh, I hate the word bokeh – I’m going to invent a new one. How about blobbiness? Worse? OK, bokeh it is).

Where was I? Ah yes, to emphasize the bokeh you need to throw the background out of focus as much as possible and for that background to be made up of points of light – this means having a very shallow depth of field (you can read more about that in my tutorial here) suffice to say – stick your camera on aperture priority and use the smallest f/number available.

You will need:

• A dSLR camera with your fastest lens
• some black card (not too thick)
• a small craft-knife or fancy stamp-cutter
• sellotape
• something to photograph that has many points of light (AKA fairy lights)

I’m going to use my Canon 50mm f/1.4 lens – this should in theory work with any lens but will be easier to see the effects with a lens that  can be stopped-down to a small f/number and therefore will already ‘give good bokeh’.

Make sure the piece of card you have is big enough to cover your lens (but not so big it obscures your vision through the viewfinder). I drew round the lens cap and then cut round little outside the line.

Now the fun bit – choose the shape for your blobbies. A heart is a popular shape and certainly gives an instant lovey-dovey effect to any photo – I though am going to ‘attempt’ a snowflake christmas tree… and maybe a star. Cut this shape into the centre of your card – the overall size of the hole should be about 1-1.5cm across.

If you were so inclined you could fashion a little papery lens cap that popson and off your lens – if you’re impatient like me though just slap it on there with some sellotape, that will work just as well.

Make sure your aperture is opened all the way up (that means the smallest f/number you have available – in my case f/1.4).

Now you can point the camera at your Christmas tree and if it’s out of focus your bokeh will be the shape of whatever you cut out – rather magical, don’t you think?

I think it works better if you put something in the main focus rather than putting the bokeh centre-stage.

These aren’t especially wonderful photos but hopefully they are illustrative enough to show just how easy this effect is. Do let me know if you try it!

I’ve been off the radar so far as the internet and social media goes for a few days which was a wrench at first and then transitioned into a great relief. It has been quite bizarre to pop the radio on for the news and not have a clue what the lead story would be (I’m normally glued to BBC rolling news one way or another). Thankfully all this wasn’t due to any great technical disaster or mis-hap, I just happened to have lots on non-computery things to do. I’ve been itching to get back though, so ta-da! Here I am!

One of those things to do was to bake a mega-batch of chocolate brownies which, even if I do say so myself, turned out super-fantastically-awesome and were a big hit at my Mum’s birthday bash. In a bid to actually use my camera after dark and practice with my flash-gun I photographed the process (there’s only a little bit of chocolate on my camera now).

As well as tasting fabulous this I love this recipe as it does not involve any of the three steps in baking that I loathe, namely; creaming butter and sugar, sifting or getting the food-processor out of the cupboard.

Presenting: My Recipe for Awesome Chocolate Brownies

(Based on St. Nigella’s ‘Snow-Flecked Brownies’ from her ‘Feast’ recipe book)

Makes 32 brownies (feel free to halve this recipe, but you WILL regret it)!

Ingredients:

• 375g unsalted butter (US =  3 sticks plus 2 tablespoons)
• 375g Dark Chocolate (US = 13oz)
• 6 eggs
• 350g Caster Sugar (2 cups)
• 1 Tbsp Vanilla Extract
• 225g Plain Flour (1.5 cups plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour)
• 1 Tsp Salt
• 250g White Chocolate Buttons (US = 9oz)
• 2 Tsp icing sugar (US = confectioners sugar) for dusting

Method:
1} Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C (350 degrees F).

2} Line the sides and base of two small or one large baking tins with baking parchment (I have two square tins that are 25x25cm each – they doesn’t need to be exact though, or even square).

3} Melt the butter and dark chocolate together in a large heavy-based pan over low heat. You can do this directly in the pan – no need for a double-boiler – use a biggish pan, there’s more going in later.

4} In a bowl, beat the eggs together with the sugar and vanilla extract. Allow the chocolate mixture to cool a little, then add the egg and sugar mixture and beat well.

5} Fold in the flour and salt. Then stir in the chunks of milk chocolate. Beat to combine then scrape and pour the brownie mixture into the prepared baking tins.

6} Pop tins into the oven. Over all baking  time will probably be about 25 minutes, but start checking after 15 minutes. You can tell when the brownies are ready because the top will start drying and look a paler brown and cracked, while the middle remains dark, dense and gooey.

7} To serve, cut into squares while still warm and pile up on a large plate, sprinkling with icing sugar pushed through a small sieve.

8} Eat.

PS – as a side-note: the chocolatey mix of butter and sugar you end up with in step 3 is exactly what I wish they’d used as the chocolate river in Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory – that was the only bit of that film that disappointed me (the proper version with Gene Wilder).

One of my favourite activities lately is to grab a coffee when I get home from work and then browse through all the wintry gorgeousness in the 100 Days of Winter flickr group. There’s such a range of images, all beautiful in their own way and each one restoring my faith that winter might actually be the most photogenic season of the year, after all!

Here are some of my own wintry offerings, foresty ones. Not from today, but wintry none-the-less.

On dark winter evenings, if there’s no opportunity for photography, there’s always the chance to have a tinker in Photoshop…

If you find yourself in a pine wood on an overcast afternoon in winter with an SLR camera at your disposal then you might want to have a go at something like this…

I think they look quite painterly, don’t you? And it’s easy to do, too – simply switch to manual, slow the shutter speed right down, focus on the nearest tree and swoop up or down in the direction of the trees as you’re taking the photo…

It will probably take you a handful of shots to get the settings just right and undo all those years of training to be rigidly still whilst taking a photo…

These are pretty much straight out of the camera looking like this – no jiggery-pokery in Photoshop at all. Yes, the effect is quite limited, but it’s fun too!

All taken with Canon 5D MkII and EF 50mm f/1.4 lens.

Most settings are around 400ISO, f/22, 1/50th sec.

Now I know it must be winter, as I’ve had my first mince pie of the year! And a coffee too, although that wasn’t even my first one of the day, let alone year.

I’d earned a treat after fighting my way through the crowds in town – so many people!