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View Full Version : Noob question: how do you pronounce "Bokeh?"



chris jordan
14-Jul-2006, 12:55
Hi guys, I think I understand that "bokeh" refers to the way a lens renders out-of-focus stuff when you're shooting with low depth of field. I've made a few low-DOF images in my Katrina series, so I may want to use "bokeh" in a conversation sometime. Could someone please save me from sounding like a dork and tell me how to pronounce it?

And by the way, the Wehman is here and it's awesome. More on that when I've had a chance to work with it some...

~cj

www.chrisjordan.com

Ash
14-Jul-2006, 12:59
In a conversation I say all possible ways to pronounce it one after another and end with "or whatever its called" :D

But seriously I say "boh-keh" with a short lower case 'o' sound. or else "bow-keh". I'm probably wrong though :)

jhogan
14-Jul-2006, 13:10
Try this:

photonotes.org (http://photonotes.org/cgi-bin/entry.pl?id=Bokeh)

Oren Grad
14-Jul-2006, 13:41
The photonotes.org entry is not quite right.

Chris, in Japanese it's pronounced with long "o" (like "hold") and short "e" (like "hen").

Michael Graves
14-Jul-2006, 13:52
I've always pronounced it fuzz-eee.

Jeffrey Sipress
14-Jul-2006, 14:16
When exactly did this word come into use. I've been photographing for a long time, and just heard of this term about two years ago. Is it kinda like 'latte' and 'couture', and other new age words just made up?

Michael Chmilar
14-Jul-2006, 14:29
Wikipedia entry on bokeh: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bokeh

The links at the bottom of the page show some history of the term. Probably the first English-language article on Bokeh is the Photo Techniques article in 1997.

Oren Grad
14-Jul-2006, 14:47
Jeffrey, the term "bokeh" is Japanese, and its use in the Japanese photographic literature to refer to OOF character dates back many decades at least.

To my knowledge, its first appearance in the English-language photography literature was in a special feature published in the May/June 1997 issue of Photo Techniques magazine. There were three articles - by John Kennerdell, Harold Merklinger, and yours truly - as well as a related comment by Mike Johnston, who was editor of PT at the time. The feature was Mike's idea, and grew out of a long series of informal message-board and email exchanges among us. Harold's article, a semi-technical explanation of bokeh, is available for downloading from his web site:

http://www.trenholm.org/hmmerk/ATVB.pdf

The other articles, unfortunately, are not available online.

Jeffrey Sipress
14-Jul-2006, 14:50
Thanks, Oren.

BrianShaw
14-Jul-2006, 15:33
Jeffrey, the term "bokeh" is Japanese, and its use in the Japanese photographic literature to refer to OOF character dates back many decades at least.

Always precede saying 'bokeh' with a deep bow, speak the word clearly and with clipped inflection, quickly follow the speaking of the word with a loud "hai", and complete the ancient ritual with a deep bow.

Bill_1856
14-Jul-2006, 16:09
I'm from the South. We say boo-key. Rhymes with Kookie (as in 77 Sunset Strip), Pooky (as in the Sterile Cookoo), and Vukey (as in the world's greatest Indy 500 driver, the late, great Bill Vukovitch).

Capocheny
14-Jul-2006, 17:46
Here in Canada... it's pronounced,

Bo (as in low) keh (as in kay)

Okay, bo kay? [Gotta stop drinking so much of that red wine!:)]

Cheers

Paul Fitzgerald
14-Jul-2006, 20:02
I thought it rhymed with 'bouquet'

or 'Heliar'.

Eric James
14-Jul-2006, 21:19
I've been pronouncing it like boka, long "O" short "a" for a decade and will be hard-pressed to train myself as advised above. It's a valuable consideration, bokeh, and I often avoid using particular lenses wide open. I haven't read many discussions on the subject here because of our ability to render many compositions fully focused without stopping down to miniscule apertures.

Bob Gentile
14-Jul-2006, 21:35
"... Gotta stop drinking so much of that red wine...!"
But reds have such a nice bokeh... er, bouquet!

Hiro
14-Jul-2006, 21:39
In Japanese, both vowels (o and e) are short--bo as in "boy" and ke(h) as in "que (sera sera)," though I imagine particularly the ending would sound and feel abrupt.
Bokeh also refers to the fuzziness of mental faculties in an Alzheimer sort of way.




or 'Heliar'.
or "Cooke"?

Eric James
14-Jul-2006, 21:41
Or Noob.

Capocheny
15-Jul-2006, 00:00
But reds have such a nice bokeh... er, bouquet!


Hello Bob,

Nice! :)

Cheers

Emrehan Zeybekoglu
15-Jul-2006, 11:53
Does anybody know how it is spelled in Japanese (using Japaneses characters)?

GPS
15-Jul-2006, 12:57
Bokeh - bo (like in bo-nd) + ke (like in ke-pt) +h (like in h-e). bokeh.

Oren Grad
15-Jul-2006, 22:41
Does anybody know how it is spelled in Japanese (using Japaneses characters)?

It's generally written with the katakana characters "bo" and "ke".

Hiro
15-Jul-2006, 23:05
Ditto.
The top two characters are katakana and used for photographic bokeh (read left to right). The bottom characters apply when you don't remember your name.
In the Kansai region (around Osaka), "boke(h)" also means an insult--something like "You dumb $hit."

thomas_m
16-Jul-2006, 12:40
Hey Hiro.

There's a kanji for 'bokeh' in the photographic sense.

It's the root of the verb 'bokeru' for 'fade in color, become dim'. The 'on-yomi' or chinese root pronunciation for this one is 'un' for example in 'unshoku' or 'iridescence' and 'unei' or 'halation' in photography. It looks like this: 暈け

'Bokeru' as in 'to become senile' is a homophone but has a very diffferent kanji character that you showed above. It's on-yomi is 'ho/bo' as in the term you referenced, 'boke' or my favorite, 'aho' or idiot.

The 'blurry' aspect of both terms is interesting but they are written differently in Japanese.

T.

Oren Grad
16-Jul-2006, 13:52
There's a kanji for 'bokeh' in the photographic sense.

It's the root of the verb 'bokeru' for 'fade in color, become dim'. The 'on-yomi' or chinese root pronunciation for this one is 'un' for example in 'unshoku' or 'iridescence' and 'unei' or 'halation' in photography. It looks like this: 暈け

'Bokeru' as in 'to become senile' is a homophone but has a very diffferent kanji character that you showed above. It's on-yomi is 'ho/bo' as in the term you referenced, 'boke' or my favorite, 'aho' or idiot.

The 'blurry' aspect of both terms is interesting but they are written differently in Japanese.

T.

That's a good dictionary analysis, and probably on target as far as the etymology is concerned, but I can't recall seeing either of those kanji used in a modern photographic context. It seems to always be written in katakana.

thomas_m
16-Jul-2006, 15:23
That's a good dictionary analysis, and probably on target as far as the etymology is concerned, but I can't recall seeing either of those kanji used in a modern photographic context. It seems to always be written in katakana.

That's true of many words in Japanese, albeit usually hiragana and one of the big reasons why it's so hard to read news publications, literary works etc. which will often use more difficult kanji due to the many homophones and the extra contextual feel given by the meaning of the individual characters in addition to the meaning of the combined term. A former colleague of mine who was a kokugo instructor likened it to the use of latin root terms in english vs the use of terms with anglo roots.

My post wasn't to say that it was usually written in kanji, rather to clarify the difference between the homophones. The photographic term is unrelated to the term my wife grumbles under her breath after helping me find my keys...

T.

Hiro
16-Jul-2006, 21:37
Thomas,
Indeed the kanji you gave (somehow doesn't show properly on the screen) is used for it while katakana is more common.
All the variations...I can read but can't write many of them due primarily to the dependence on word processor:)

thomas_m
16-Jul-2006, 22:02
Thomas,
Indeed the kanji you gave (somehow doesn't show properly on the screen) is used for it while katakana is more common.
All the variations...I can read but can't write many of them due primarily to the dependence on word processor:)

LOL! You and everyone else. Gotta love that spacebar on the ol' waapuro...

My kokugo-sensei friend that I mentioned before used to constantly moan and groan about this very subject.

T.