i've always enjoyed playing around and learning different photography techniques. my first camera was very basic but that didn't stop me trying some long exposure shots. i've combined photos together in photoshop to different effect in multiple exposure shots and used other post processing tricks turning panoramas into little planets. since getting my slr camera i've been able to add hdr to my arsenal of techniques, and a remote control has changed the way i photograph the stars. a few months ago i learnt about a technique i'd never heard of - shaped bokeh. when you take a photo with a very shallow depth of field, the lens generally turns the out of focus light sources into circular shapes - like this - called bokeh. if you cut a different shape into a piece of (preferably black) paper and place this in front of the lens these circular lights adopt the new shape. i was anxious to test this out when i was in lima, so i bought some black paper at an art shop, cut some shapes with my pen knife, and headed down to the busy street below. this is one of the results of these tests. to get the best effect you need to set the focus to the foreground (accentuating the blurriess of the lights in the background) therefore a picture like this would work best if there was a subject in the foreground which i could focus on. i've been intending to get out again and try this, but haven't found the time. besides, there is something i still like about this early test, and the stars seem appropriate at this time of year. on which note... merry christmas.

here's the original

i've always enjoyed playing around and learning different photography techniques. my first camera was very basic but that didn't stop me trying some long exposure shots. i've combined photos together in photoshop to different effect in multiple exposure shots and used other post processing tricks turning panoramas into little planets. since getting my slr camera i've been able to add hdr to my arsenal of techniques, and a remote control has changed the way i photograph the stars. a few months ago i learnt about a technique i'd never heard of - shaped bokeh. when you take a photo with a very shallow depth of field, the lens generally turns the out of focus light sources into circular shapes - like this - called bokeh. if you cut a different shape into a piece of (preferably black) paper and place this in front of the lens these circular lights adopt the new shape. i was anxious to test this out when i was in lima, so i bought some black paper at an art shop, cut some shapes with my pen knife, and headed down to the busy street below. this is one of the results of these tests. to get the best effect you need to set the focus to the foreground (accentuating the blurriess of the lights in the background) therefore a picture like this would work best if there was a subject in the foreground which i could focus on. i've been intending to get out again and try this, but haven't found the time. besides, there is something i still like about this early test, and the stars seem appropriate at this time of year. on which note... merry christmas.

here's the original