I Should Have Said...

I assume too much sometimes.

I should have added, to John Kennerdell's article "In Defense of Depth" yesterday, a reminder that John was the author of the article I published in Photo Techniques in 1997 that introduced the term "bokeh" and the concept behind it to photographers in the West.

I added two other articles to John's—one by Oren Grad on the terminology of bokeh in Japan, and the one that really allowed the trio of articles to be published in Photo Techniques at all, Harold Merklinger's fine investigation of the technical underpinnings of the appearance of out-of-d.o.f. blur. (Photo Techniques, as its name implied, was a technical magazine, and didn't publish a lot of articles about pure aesthetic considerations without also covering the technical side.) But despite the fact that all three articles appeared together, John's was the first and really the central one, and the one that kicked things off.

Please forgive me for assuming that was common knowledge. If I had thought about it for half a second I would have realized it is not.

Mike

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Original contents copyright 2012 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.

Comments

[Marcin Wuu]

I must confess I didn't know that. And now that I know, and visited John's site (where I found that vast majority of his photos are indeed shallow dof portraits) I am doubly confused. Was this article an excercise in self-irony then? Or something along the lines of Phil Collins hit - "Just do as I say, don't do as I do?"

[scott kirkpatrick]

Is it possible to make that complex of three articles available on the web again?

scott

[Hugh]

It would be nice to have those three classic articles republished on the blog.

[Mark Scholey]

It's more an article on 'hindsight' than self-irony Marcin, as John says in the article:

"Just don't be surprised if some day you look back on all that shallow-focus work and find yourself wishing you'd paid more attention to the third dimension. And don't ask me whose old photos I was looking at when I first began to realize that for myself."

[Peter]

@scott kirkpatrick, not sure about the rest of them but Merklinger's technical article has been republished on LuLa here: http://www.luminous-landscape.com/essays/bokeh.shtml

[Peter]

I also would love to be able to read those three articles.

[James Rhem]

Indeed, thanks for the reminder Mike. I was a subscriber to PT and those articles came at an interesting time in my work on Ralph Eugene Meatyard and connected in interesting ways with his "No Focus" images and his sense that he had invented or discovered something in that and perhaps in the 1960s he had.

[Marcin Wuu]

Well, then, I suppose it's a thing we all have to learn the hard way (if there is actually a thing to learn). I for one didn't reach this turning point... yet.

[Lexnotlex2]

"...introduced the term "bokeh" and the concept behind it to photographers in the West."

I remember that, via CompuServe chatter way back when.

Thus was the internut forever borkeh'd. And you dunnit, Mike.

[PWP]

When I read that article on bokeh in 1997 I was pleasantly shocked and amazed! There being introduced to me was a photographic concept that I had not known existed or ever considered. I was thrilled to discover it through the article. Mike, thank you so much for publishing that article; I have used that knowledge of bokeh ever since!

[Dennis Allshouse]

Ah, the mists part.

[Dave Karp]

I remember those articles. I'll bet I have them stashed in the garage somewhere too!

Never heard the term before then, but innumerable times since.