Bokeh

Henrik's amazing dragonfly shot impressed us this month. His female scarlet dragonfly is perfectly sharp and well placed a third of the way in from the right edge of the frame and surrounded by incredible bokeh and super colourful out of focus highlights. This image really pops and is unlike anything else we saw - great job!

Ian's still life shot is certainly full of bokeh and it makes for an incredibly colourful and textured background for his glass of wine. This effect has been created by a super wide aperture of f/1.4 though this also means the glass looks a little out of focus because the depth of field is so shallow. Great effort!

This is a lovely red squirrel portrait with strong eye contact and some decent bokeh cirlces in the background. While there is some nice light hitting the squirrel from the right, producing a lovely rim lighting, the bokeh in the background is a little flat and not too colourful.

This is a lovely pet portrait from Rose, who captured this wonderful moment of a cat perched on a fence. Getting down to the cat's eye level has worked well as this makes the angle much more intimate and allowed her to blur the background more effectively.

This is a wonderful shot full of beautiful bokeh in this woodland setting. The colour palette is brimming with incredible autumnal browns, oranges and yellows and the background has been blurred wonderfully with a wide aperture for a shallow depth of field. The Golden Eagle's pose is strong, looking into the active space on the left and making eye contact with the camera.

Graham's taken an incredible shot here of this osprey flying towards with him with its catch in tow. He's focused nicely on its striking yellow eyes to make sure its head has come out pin sharp and used a wide f/3.2 aperture for a shallow depth of field to blur the background into a fantastic wash of green. Great job!

Paul's taken a lovely macro shot of these mushrooms with beautiful light coming into the scene from the left and incredible large bokeh circles in the background, produced by shooting close with a macro lens. This offers a fantastic backdrop and a great range of texture and colours in the frame too. Great work!

Martin's taken a wonderful nature shot here, getting close for a frame-filling shot with his Canon EF 100-400mm lens. The central and symmetrical framing works rather nicely and the lavender field has created a beautiful wash of purple in the foreground as well as vibrant bokeh in the background allowing the two yellow bees to really pop out. Great job!

Christy's lovely portrait of her daughter is full of incredible bokeh with the autumnal yellow leaves swirling behind her. She used a Lensbaby Twist 60 to achieve the swirling effect which really made the bokeh stand out, she's also focused nicely on the girl to make sure she's pin-sharp and the clear focal point of the frame.

Chris's shot is full of fantastic bokeh, turning water spray from a waterfall into incredible out of focus highlights which add some fantastic texture to the shot. He's done a great job focusing on the water dragon to make sure it's pin-sharp while blurring the rest of the frame and the mono conversion adds extra punch. Great job!

Samuel has taken a lovely portrait of this fox cub and has transformed the bluebells in the scene into fantastic colourful bokeh in both the foreground and background by using a telephoto lens and a wide aperture of f/4. The green and blue colours around the frame really help the bright orange fox to pop out of its surroundings. Great job!

Jay's taken an incredible butterfly portrait here. His off-centre composition works rather well, positioning the butterfly about a third of the way in from the left edge. The low angle of the sun has produced dramatic lighting and has bathed the scene in rich golden tones. The water spray is the icing on the cake and adds extra detail and texture to the scene.

Geraint has taken an incredible macro shot of these bluebells, and getting in close has allowed him to blur the background into a wonderful wash of blues and purples. The central composition works well and he's underexposed the image a little to make sure no tones have clipped. He also stacked four images together to make sure the bluebells were completely sharp - great job!