Photographer Creates Entrancing Bokeh Backdrop

Some gels, a design, and a little DIY ingenuity came together to create this awesome setup that allowed Photographer Anya Anti to shoot these gorgeous and interesting portraits. Check out the results and go behind the scenes to make your own. 

I love great DIY setups; I think they really embody the spirit of creativity and problem solving that is photography. This setup is super easy to replicate (see the video above) and produces great results, as you can see below. 

Gear-wise, Anti used the following:

Notice how she wasn't ultra-precise in creating rounded holes, using just a pencil and scissors. Some good background separation and the proper aperture smoothed out the jagged edges. If you really want perfectly round holes, though, just grab a drill. Be sure to follow Anti on Instagram and check out her website for more.

[via ISO 1200]

Alex Cooke's picture

Alex Cooke is a Cleveland-based portrait, events, and landscape photographer. He holds an M.S. in Applied Mathematics and a doctorate in Music Composition. He is also an avid equestrian.

Log in or register to post comments
1 Comment

Lovely images here and a great idea for a backdrop, but I think the title is slightly wrong for the article.

"Photographer creates entrancing bokeh backdrop", bokeh isn't something that you can create with lights or candles etc. Bokeh is the 'QUALITY' of the out of focus areas in an image. This is a very subjective discussion because what one person deems to be good bokeh, might be slightly different to another person. I see a lot of articles around the web at the moment talking about how a photographer has created bokeh. That is technically incorrect. What the photographer has created is a shallow depth of field with out of focus areas. The bokeh is how pleasing that out of focus area looks to the viewer. A lot of this is determined by the lens itself and the subject to background separation distance etc

Perhaps someone more technically minded than myself can write an article explaining what Bokeh is? It just seems to be very much the 'in' word at the moment and people are using it incorrectly which is causing confusion.

Like I say, I enjoyed reading the article so thank you for writing it. The images are really nice too!