QUICK! Before You Take Down Your Christmas Tree -- TRY THIS!

This post probably would  have been more useful about two weeks ago -- but it's better late than never, right? (Unless it's too late...)

So there's this beautiful, relatively straightforward photography technique called bokeh. 

It requires a little trial-and-error, but you can end up with amazing photos like this one:

Regal, right? 

To take your own bokeh photos, you'll need some Christmas lights and a camera with a relatively large/fast aperture. Then:

1. Use the larger end of your aperture, which pulls your background (the lights) out of focus and turn into balls of light. It'll look especially artistic if you have a subject (like the beautiful Ruby Snoofer) in front of the lights. 
2. Increase the size of your lights by getting further away from your subject (the thing that's in-focus -- in this case, Ruby).
3. Weirdly, if you cut out a shape and stick it on your camera lens like a stencil, it'll make all the lights look like the shape you made. Whether that's a dog bone:

A romantic heart:

A mean ol' kitty cat:

Or stars:

To do the custom bokeh shapes, first cut a long strip of paper to wrap around your lens. Then cut a circle that will fit around the lens hood. Cut a square in the circle. Tape the long strip in a ring to itself, and tape the circle-square onto the end. Then cut out another square, and cut the shape you want (heart, kitty cat, etc.) into the square. Tape it over the square in the circle. 

Confused? Watch this great video. It explains everything way better than I did -- and the guy includes lots of helpful tips at the end. 

If you're not the artsy type, you can also just order a kit on amazon. 

Oh, one more thing. Those amazing Ruby photos? Not mine. I was the inspiration. Justin Smith was the artist. Thought I'd throw that out there, since it wasn't obvious. 

And hopefully, I'll continue to be a bokeh inspiration. If you've got some photos you'd like to share, I'd love to see them. Find me on Facebook or Twitter!