Anthony's Literary Lens

Author: Anthony Thomas

  • The Rabbit and the Flight.

    The Rabbit and the Flight.

    Once again, I find myself running. The corridors shift beneath my feet, stretching, bending, distorting as though they belong not to the material world but to the unconscious itself—shapeless, fluid, dictated by forces unknown to my waking mind. And yet, I know with certainty that behind me, just at my heels, is the rabbit.

    It is a creature of no real threat. Small, brown, its form is innocent, even benign. It does not snarl, does not leap toward me with aggression. It speaks only a single word:

    “Run.”

    And so I do. I flee through this labyrinth, though I do not know from what. The rabbit, too, is running—but is it pursuing me or warning me? Or is it simply the manifestation of my own unconscious, given form in this nocturnal theater of repression?

    The animal figure, the chase, the command—each element is symbolic, drawing from the deep well of my psyche. The rabbit, so often a symbol of fertility, of innocence, of uncontrollable instinct, stands as a representation of something primal within me. It urges me onward, yet it is not the true source of my terror. No, the true fear lies in the unseen, the thing that lurks beyond, the thing that both the rabbit and I are escaping.

    Could it be the manifestation of a suppressed desire? A latent anxiety? Am I fleeing some forbidden impulse, one too dangerous to acknowledge in waking life? Or is this rabbit the embodiment of duty, of expectation—some force within me that demands I move forward, though I do not know why, nor toward what?

    The dream repeats, night after night, and yet its meaning eludes me, slipping through my fingers like sand. Perhaps I do not wish to know. Perhaps the mind protects itself from revelations too unbearable to face. And yet, I know this much:

    I run not from the rabbit, but from what it represents. And so long as I do not turn to face it, I shall remain forever in flight.

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  • The Room Without Doors

    The Room Without Doors

    I wake up, as always, in the same room. The walls are gray, but I don’t remember if they were always gray or if they simply absorbed the color of my thoughts over time. There is a door, but it does not open. Or maybe it does, and I have forgotten how to turn the handle. In any case, I do not leave.

    Loneliness is not an event. It does not arrive with fanfare or explanation. It is a slow accumulation, like dust settling in corners you rarely notice. You do not decide to be alone; you simply wake up one day and realize that no one has knocked on your door for a long time.

    At first, I tried to fight it. I wrote letters, but I had no one to send them to. I walked the streets, but the people I passed were like shadows, their faces indistinct, their voices muffled. I tried to summon memories of warmth, of conversation, of touch. But memories are unreliable—paper-thin imitations of something that once had weight. Eventually, even they began to fade.

    There is a man who sometimes appears in my dreams. He wears a hat, smokes a cigarette, and speaks in riddles. Last night, he sat across from me at a café that no longer exists and stirred his coffee without drinking it.

    “You are mistaken,” he said. “You think loneliness is an absence, but it is not. It is a presence.”

    “A presence?” I asked.

    “Yes,” he said. “Like fog. Like hunger. It fills the spaces between things. It grows when you try to ignore it.”

    I woke up before I could ask him what to do.

    This morning, I stood in front of the mirror for a long time. My reflection looked unfamiliar, like a photograph left in the sun too long. I touched the glass, as if trying to confirm my own solidity. I wondered, briefly, if I had become a ghost. But no—ghosts haunt others. I haunt only myself.

    Outside, the world continues. People board trains, read newspapers, fall in love, make mistakes, grow old. I remain here, in my room without doors, waiting for something that will not come.

    Perhaps the man in my dream was right. Loneliness is not an absence. It is a thing with shape and substance. It sits beside me as I write this. It watches over my shoulder. It will be here tomorrow.

    And the day after that.

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  • Of Steel Cathedrals and Silent Green Martyrs

    Of Steel Cathedrals and Silent Green Martyrs

    So it goes: I’ve got this picture in my head, or maybe on my phone, or perhaps etched into the back of my eyelids by some cosmic etcher with a dark sense of humor.

    Steel giants bite clouds— 
    elevators hum progress. 
    Roots crack the sidewalk.

    The trees are just… there, like they’ve always been, like they’re waiting for someone to apologize. The skyscrapers, though—oh, those glorious, preposterous middle fingers to gravity. Let’s talk about those first, because humanity loves a crescendo, even if the finale is a dirge. 

    The skyscrapers. Let’s call them what they are: tombstones for the ego of the species. Each one a Babel reboot, a steel-and-glass hymn to the gods of More. You can almost hear them creak under the weight of their own symbolism. “Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair”, they whisper, though their HVAC systems hums tunes of existential dread. They are triumphs, sure—miracles of engineering, collaboration, and the kind of optimism that requires ignoring leaky seams or rust’s patience. Their house stock trades, divorces, and 3 PM Zoom meetings where someone inevitably says, “Let’s circle back.” Progress! Marvelous, merciless progress. 

    But what price progress? The trees, for instance. My eyes keep sliding off those vainglorious towers and snagging on the trees. *Why?* They’re not even special trees. No sequoias, no oaks with love’s naive initials carved by heartbroken teens. Just… trees. Green things that photosynthesize like CO2’s going out to fashion. Yet there they are, roots knuckling into the dirt, leaves doing that little shudder-dance in the wind, as if to say, “You built all that? Cute.”

    So here I am: a mammal with a primate brain, inexplicably soothed by chlorophyll and bark. The skyscrapers? They’re impressive, sure. But they’re also lonely. You ever notice that? All those windows, and not one of them opens wide enough to yell, “What are we doing here?” The trees, though—they’ve got a different loneliness. The kind that doesn’t need answering. The kind that just *is*, like tax returns or the sound of your own heartbeat at 3 AM. 

    Maybe it’s the scale. The skyscrapers shrink me; the trees do too, but politely. One says, “You are a speck.” The other says, “So am I. Let’s have a beer.” There’s a humility in their persistence, these green martyrs. They don’t care if you admire them. They’re not checking LinkedIn. They’re just… enduring, the way mold endures in a bachelor’s fridge—quietly. Without fanfare. Without elevators.  

    So here I am, a hairless ape with a pension plan, caught between cathedrals of ambition and these shaggy, unkempt priests of green. The skyscrapers win, of course. They always win. But the trees—oh, the trees—they *wait*. And in their waiting, there’s a kind of rebellion. A reminder that progress is a firework, but life is a tide that flows unending.  

    And so it goes.

    A thousand windows 
    reflect nothing. The trees breathe— 
    “Are we alive yet?” 

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  • Retro Revival: Peace, Love, and the Eternal Appeal of Bell-Bottoms

    Retro Revival: Peace, Love, and the Eternal Appeal of Bell-Bottoms

    Now, snap back to 2025. You’re scrolling Instagram, and suddenly—there it is: a perfectly curated photo of someone wearing bell-bottoms, holding a macramé handbag, and standing in front of a van that says, “Groovy Times.” It hits you like a cloud of secondhand incense. You want that. You want to live in that vibe. Even if the closest you’ve come to protesting is rage-quitting Twitter, and the only grass you’ve touched is your kale smoothie.

    But why? Why does the hippy era continue to have such a chokehold on us? Is it the aesthetic? The music? The idea of peace and love when the world feels like a chaotic dumpster fire? Or is it just that we secretly love the smell of leather fringe and marijuana? Let’s light an imaginary joint (or, you know, a soy candle) and dive in.


    The Eternal Coolness of Being Chill
    There’s something deeply appealing about the hippy ethos of “turn on, tune in, drop out.” Sure, it was originally about rebelling against The Man and escaping societal norms, but let’s face it: in the era of burnout and hustle culture, who doesn’t want to “drop out”? We’re not even dropping out to go to Woodstock. We’re dropping out just to stay in bed and doom-scroll TikTok. It’s the same energy, but with fewer drum circles.

    The hippies didn’t have smartphones, but they did have time to sit in fields and strum guitars while pondering the meaning of existence. They were about connection—real, face-to-face, let’s-hold-hands-and-feel-the-earth-between-our-toes connection. Compare that to now, where we’re lucky if we make it through a FaceTime call without accidentally freezing mid-sentence.


    Fashion That Says, “I’m One with the Universe (and Maybe a Little High)”
    Let’s talk about the clothes. The bell-bottoms. The crochet tops. The flower crowns. It’s as if someone looked at conventional clothing and said, “What if we dressed like we’re part of the scenery at Joshua Tree?”

    And somehow, decades later, it still works. There’s something undeniably freeing about wearing something flowy and unstructured. It’s like telling the world, “I’m not going to let pants dictate my day. I’m here to vibe.” Plus, let’s be honest—retro fashion hides a multitude of sins. No one’s checking if you did leg day when you’re swishing around in palazzo pants.


    The Music Was Better When It Was Vinyl
    I know, I know. Every generation says their music was the best, but let’s get real for a second: the ’60s and ’70s absolutely crushed it. The Beatles. Janis Joplin. Hendrix shredding a guitar like it owed him money. It wasn’t just music; it was a movement.

    When you drop a needle on a vinyl record, it’s like entering a time machine. There’s that warm crackle, the richness of analog sound, and the fact that you can’t skip tracks without looking like a DJ who lost their way. You’re forced to experience the music, which is maybe why it hits so hard.


    Rebellion, but Make It Whimsical
    At its heart, the hippy era wasn’t just about fashion or music; it was about flipping the bird to societal norms. Peace, love, and rebellion—wrapped up in a tie-dyed bow. They were idealistic to a fault, but maybe that’s why we love them.

    In a world where we’re bombarded with bad news and hot takes, there’s something comforting about looking back on a time when people truly believed they could change the world. Sure, the execution was messy (and often involved questionable substances), but the dream was beautiful.


    Why Retro Revival Is Here to Stay
    So why do we keep going back to this era? Because it reminds us of possibility. Of creativity. Of sticking flowers in your hair and flipping off Richard Nixon. Retro revival isn’t just about aesthetics—it’s about recapturing the feeling that maybe, just maybe, things can get better if we all hold hands and sing “All You Need Is Love.”

    And if that doesn’t work, at least we’ll look fabulous in fringe jackets while we try.

    There you go—a whimsical, irreverent homage to the hippy era, written with the kind of energy that says, “Pass the kale chips and crank up Fleetwood Mac.”

    What do era would you like to go back to?

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  • Ramble to the summit of life

    Ramble to the summit of life

    The Brecon Beacons loomed in the distance, their snow-capped peaks smudged by a veil of mist. I snapped a picture from the base, and the image felt as though I was staring at an unattainable dream—a far-off cathedral built for gods, not mortals like me.

    Brecon Beacons January 2025

    The peaks seemed untouchable, enshrined in a kind of holy fog, as if they were hiding some secret I wasn’t meant to know. But what else could I do? I tightened my laces and started walking.

    The trail began innocently enough, a gradual incline, a whisper of mud clinging to my boots, and the wind humming a tune, as if to say ‘this place is not for you’. Step by step, the Beacons grew taller and stranger. The snowline hovered above me like an unspoken threat, a reminder that everything good in life comes with its sharp edges and cold hands. I wondered if I’d even make it. I wondered now why I’d started at all.

    Somewhere just below the snowline, I stopped to catch my breath. That’s when I saw it. A deer. Small, delicate, its legs like question marks frozen in mid-thought. It stared at me for a moment, eyes wide, then leapt away into the trees, vanishing like a memory you can’t quite hold onto. I watched the spot where it disappeared, as if waiting for it to come back and explain itself. But it didn’t. And why should it? Some things are meant to be glimpsed, not understood.

    Snow-capped peaks above,
    Cold trials test weary feet—
    I walk through the doubt.

    The higher I climbed, the thicker the mist became. I felt like I was walking into a dream, one of those nonsensical ones where the setting changes as soon as you think you’ve figured it out. The snow crunched under my boots, and the world shrank to the size of my next step. The peaks I had seen from below were gone, swallowed by the fog. For a while, I thought I might be swallowed, too.

    It was harder than I thought it would be, and I wasn’t sure I’d make it. But isn’t that how life feels sometimes? Like you’re staring up at some impossibly high peak, the path ahead hidden in mist, and every step forward feels like a gamble. But still, you keep going. Not because you’re sure you’ll make it, but because there’s nowhere to turn back to.

    Then, suddenly, I was there. The mist broke like a spell lifting, and the summit unfolded in front of me. The snow glittered in the sunlight, and the peaks stretched out like an unrolled map. It was vast and beautiful and sharp-edged, and for the first time in hours, I felt like I could breathe.

    Looking back down the trail, I thought of the image I’d taken at the base. That distant, unreachable peak was now beneath my feet. The mist that had seemed so impenetrable was gone, burned away by nothing more than time and effort. I thought about the deer, how it had stopped just long enough to remind me that there is beauty in the world and how it had raised my spirits to keep going.

    The walk back down was easier, as it always is. But I couldn’t stop thinking about how the summit had felt. Like a small, personal victory. Like proof that the peaks in life—the ones that feel impossibly far away, hidden by fog and fear—are often closer than we think.

    You just have to keep walking.

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  • Breath of the Forest

    Breath of the Forest

    The air—it’s alive. It hums, doesn’t it? Or maybe it’s in my head. No, no, it’s real, vibrating in my chest, crawling through my skin like tiny electric sparks. Is this how air used to feel? Clean, wet, soft like velvet. Not the choking, recycled stuff, scraped thin by machines. My chest feels raw, unprepared for it, like I’ve swallowed something too pure for my body.

    Pure Bliss

    And the trees—heavens, the trees. They stretch forever, all the way up, vanishing into green shadows and sunlight, folding together like lace. Too tall. Too wide. Too much. My eyes can’t hold them all at once. I try. I can’t. I blink, and they shift, ripple, like they’re breathing. The bark, cracked and grooved like skin—no, like stone—but warmer, alive, alive, alive. My fingers press against it. It presses back. Does it know I’m here? Does it care?

    I don’t trust this. It’s too perfect. Too much light, too much green, too much life. It’s like a story I heard when I was a kid. Forests with wolves and deer and wind that whispers. People who walked barefoot on the dirt, dirt that smelled like rain. It was a bedtime lie, wasn’t it? They said we killed it. Burned it. Paved it over and left it for dead. And yet here it is, here I am, knees sinking into the moss. Moss—soft like the fabric of dreams, cool under my palms.

    Dream. Yes, that’s it. This is a dream. It has to be. A glitch. My mind spinning out, a defense mechanism. The tether’s broken, I see the matrix. I’ll wake up. I’ll wake up back in the gray, the hum of machines in my ears. No birds. No birds there. But I hear them here—high, sharp, calling out into the endless green. Birds. I almost laugh. They’re real. Or I’ve invented them. Can I invent sound this beautiful?

    The smell—merciful earth, what is that smell? It’s dirt, yes, but sweeter, richer, like something blooming. Flowers? Do flowers have a smell? Not the ones we grew in the domes, sterile and waxy, pretty but hollow. These are alive, pulsing like veins in the air, like a thousand tiny hearts opening up at once. Too much. It’s too much. I close my eyes, but the forest doesn’t leave. It presses into me, through me, like it wants to crawl inside my lungs, nestle into my ribs

    Woods Imagined

    I can’t go back. How can I go back? They’ll laugh. They won’t understand. They’ll say, Oh, Aaron, the tether scrambled your mind. Forests? Sure. We had those. Once. And what did they do for us? They won’t smell this, feel this. They’ll never know how it moves, how it whispers. I could try to tell them, but the words wouldn’t come. They’re caught in my throat, tangled like the vines wrapping around the trees, twisting upward, desperate for the light.

    The wind. It moves like a sigh, brushing my skin. It knows me. Does it know what I’ve come from? What I’ve left behind? I taste salt, but I’m not crying. Am I? Maybe the forest is crying. Maybe it remembers what’s coming. What’s already happened. Or maybe it’s laughing, laughing at me, a man from the hollow future, standing here like a ghost in a world too alive to make sense.

    I sit. No, I collapse. My legs are shaking, useless. The moss takes me, cradles me like it’s been waiting. The air is thicker now, heavier, like it’s wrapping around me. A cocoon. I want to stay here. Let it swallow me whole. Let it keep me. The tether can break, and I’ll drift here forever, lost in this green dream.

    A sound—a bird, maybe? Or a branch snapping. Too sharp to be the wind. I twist, searching, but there’s nothing, only more trees. Endless trees. Watching me. Whispering to me. I think I hear words. No, not words. Something older, deeper. The pulse of roots in the soil. The creak of branches holding the sky. They know. They know what we’ve done.

    “I’m sorry,” I say aloud, my voice thin, swallowed by the forest. It feels like a lie. The words aren’t enough. Nothing is enough. My hand touches the ground—soft, cool, alive—and I want to sink into it, vanish into the earth like water. Let me stay. Let me forget what we became.

    The wind rises again, stronger this time, carrying the scent of leaves and damp earth. It washes over me, through me. My head is heavy. My eyes close. I’m floating. No—sinking. Sinking into the moss, the soil, the hum of the trees. The air thickens around me, soft as a blanket.

    “Let me stay,” I whisper, though I don’t know who I’m asking. The forest answers with silence, the kind that hums, vibrates, breathes. My chest aches with it. My heart beats too fast. Or maybe it’s slowing. Or maybe it’s the forest’s heart now, and mine is gone.

    I’ll wake up soon, back in the gray. Won’t I? But the wind doesn’t let go. The moss holds tight. The light filters through my eyelids, green and gold, and I think—maybe I won’t wake up. Maybe I was never awake at all.

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  • Chrysanthemum Art

    Chrysanthemum Art

    Chrysanthemums have been a popular subject in art for centuries, celebrated for their beauty and symbolism. Here are some famous paintings and artistic works featuring chrysanthemums:

    Chrysanthemum

    Claude Monet

    Monet, the French Impressionist master, painted several works featuring chrysanthemums. In his characteristic style, he captures their vibrant colors and delicate textures, showcasing their charm. His painting “Chrysanthemums” is a striking example of how Impressionists used light and color to bring flowers to life.

    Pierre-Auguste Renoir

    Renoir, another Impressionist, was also captivated by chrysanthemums. His painting “Chrysanthemums” features a vase overflowing with the blooms, emphasizing their lushness and intricate forms. Renoir’s brushwork highlights the flowers’ natural beauty.

    Van Gogh

    While Van Gogh is most famous for his sunflowers, he also painted chrysanthemums. His still-life works featuring these flowers reflect his love of vibrant colors and his ability to imbue still objects with emotional depth.

    Ito Jakuchu

    Ito Jakuchu, a Japanese Edo-period artist, created intricate and vibrant scrolls of chrysanthemums. His work reflects the flower’s importance in Japanese culture and combines realism with a sense of spiritual elegance.

    Qi Baishi

    Qi Baishi, a master of traditional Chinese painting, often depicted chrysanthemums in his works. Using expressive brushstrokes and ink washes, he captured their essence with simplicity and depth.

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  • Find Your Origami Crane

    Find Your Origami Crane

    In my thirty-seventh year, the origami cranes began to speak to me. Not with words exactly, but in the way the paper would crease under my fingers, each fold a whisper of something I’d forgotten I knew.

    I’d started folding them in the depths of what I can only call a peculiar darkness—the kind that seeps in slowly, like water through the walls of an aging house.

    My wife had left two years before, taking her collection of jazz records and leaving behind only the mechanical tick of our Western-style clock and the ghost of John Coltrane’s saxophone that seemed to linger in the curtains. I spent my days translating technical manuals and my nights staring at the ceiling, counting the shadows that gathered there like memories I couldn’t quite grasp.

    The first crane was an accident. I found the square of paper in my coat pocket—probably a receipt I’d meant to keep—and my hands remembered what my mind had forgotten from grade school. Muscle memory is strange that way, like a record that keeps playing even after the power goes out.

    Every evening after that, I would fold one crane. Just one. The paper had to be exactly six inches square, and I would only use white paper, though sometimes in the lamplight it looked the color of moonlight on snow. I didn’t make wishes or count towards a thousand. I simply folded, letting my fingers find their way through the valleys and mountains of paper.

    Strange things began to happen, as they often do in this world. The bakery down the street started giving me an extra pastry with my morning coffee. A cat with eyes the color of old coins began waiting for me outside my apartment. I found myself humming tunes I’d never heard before.

    But the real change was in the space between breaths, in the moments when the paper seemed to fold itself, when the crane would look at me with its pointed paper eyes and I could feel something unfolding inside my chest—something that had been creased and compressed for so long I’d forgotten it was there.

    One morning, I realized I couldn’t remember the last time I’d counted shadows on my ceiling. The darkness hadn’t disappeared—it had transformed, like paper under patient hands, into something with wings.

    They say grace finds you in unexpected ways. For some, it comes in hymns or prayers or moments of divine intervention. For me, it came in squares of white paper and the quiet meditation of folding something beautiful out of nothing at all. Each crane was a small rebellion against chaos, a tiny perfect thing in an imperfect world.

    Now, when people ask me why I still fold cranes—my apartment filled with their paper presence—I never quite know what to say. How do you explain that salvation sometimes comes not in grand gestures but in small, repeated acts of creation? That grace isn’t always amazing in the traditional sense, but in the way it sneaks up on you, one fold at a time, until you look up one day and realize you’ve learned to fly?

    Tell me if you have an “origami crane” that has helped you.

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  • What’s Wheat

    What’s Wheat

    A dimly lit, cavernous room filled with a hum of forgotten technology. The walls are adorned with corroded panels and remnants of old agricultural tools, now museum pieces.

    In the center, a flickering hologram of a weathered farmer in overalls and a straw hat stands tall, with a soft blue glow. The figure’s voice is calm yet sorrowful, echoing in the hollow space. Surrounding the hologram are silent spectators, young faces illuminated by its ghostly light, their clothes sleek and utilitarian, suggesting a world of automation and detachment from nature.

    “Once, this was the way of things. The cycle of seasons guided us, taught us patience and survival. Fields of wheat—golden and swaying under the sun—were not just crops. They were life. They were bread, sustenance, and hope.

    But you… you’ve forgotten. Forgotten the smell of freshly turned soil. Forgotten the feel of grain in your hands, the ache of laboring beneath a harvest moon. You’ve lost the wisdom that every seed planted is a promise made to the future.

    You live now in towers that pierce the clouds, eating foods conjured from machines, grown in chemical vats. Convenience has replaced resilience. No longer do you store grain against the coming of winter. No longer do you prepare, for winter itself has been engineered out of your world. And yet, you are colder than ever.

    Do you know what wheat meant? It meant warmth. It meant survival through the bitter months. We threshed it, stored it, guarded it. We sang songs to it, blessed it. Not because it was easy, but because it was essential. There is no joy without effort, no nourishment without toil.

    And winter—it wasn’t just a season. It was a reckoning. It taught us humility. When the land went barren, when the frost claimed the earth, we relied on what we had prepared. It bound us together, made us grateful for every loaf.

    But now, you press buttons. You summon sustenance from nowhere. Tell me, what will you do when the machines fail? When the systems you depend on falter, and the winds howl again, and the earth beneath your feet remembers its power?

    You must return to the soil. Not for nostalgia, but for necessity. Plant. Harvest. Store. Learn again what it means to endure, to thrive by your own hands. If you do not, winter will come—not the winter of old, but one far colder, far more unyielding.

    The wheat waits for you. The earth waits for you. Listen to them, before it’s too late.”

    (The hologram flickers, its image momentarily distorting before stabilizing, the faint sound of wind and rustling wheat echoing from unseen speakers. The room is silent, the weight of the message settling over the onlookers like the frost of a long-forgotten winter.)

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  • The Art of Bokeh

    The Art of Bokeh

    Ah, bokeh—the mysterious and magical effect that turns the background of your photos into a dreamy blur of lights and colors.

    Bokeh

    If you’ve ever gazed at a photo of twinkling holiday lights or a lone flower in sharp focus with an ocean of creamy fuzz behind it, you’ve met bokeh. But what exactly is this sorcery, and how can you use it to make your photos look like they were taken by an artist rather than your Aunt Carol? Let’s dive into the world of bokeh, where physics meets artistry.

    What Is Bokeh, Anyway?


    First things first: it’s pronounced “boh-kay” or “boh-kuh,” depending on how many photography snobs are in the room. The term comes from the Japanese word boke, meaning “blur” or “haze.” In photography, bokeh refers to the aesthetic quality of the blur in out-of-focus areas of an image. That’s right—photographers have a fancy word for making things blurry.

    But it’s not just any blur. Good bokeh is buttery smooth, like the frosting on a cake you swore you wouldn’t eat but definitely will. Bad bokeh? Think crumpled aluminum foil. The key is how the lens renders light and shapes in the background, turning pinpricks of light into glowing orbs or swirling patterns.

    How to Achieve Bokeh That’s as Beautiful as Your Dreams of Quitting Your Job

    The secret to great bokeh isn’t a filter you slap on in Photoshop (though that’s always an option for the truly desperate). It’s a mix of equipment, technique, and a little artistic flair. Here’s how to make it happen:

    Use a Fast Lens
    You’ll want a lens with a wide aperture, like f/1.4, f/1.8, or f/2.8. The wider the aperture, the shallower the depth of field—and the shallower the depth of field, the blurrier your background. Think of it as your lens’s way of saying, “Let me take care of the mess in the back while you focus on the star of the show.”

    Mind the Distance
    The closer you are to your subject, the better your chances of creating beautiful bokeh. Bonus points if your background is far away. It’s a bit like dating—keep the star player close and the distractions as far away as possible.

    Seek Out the Light
    Points of light in the background (streetlights, fairy lights, candles, or that chandelier you splurged on) will make your bokeh pop. Arrange them so they enhance your composition without stealing the spotlight. Or just throw a string of lights behind your subject and call it a day.

    Choose Your Lens Wisely
    Not all lenses are created equal in the bokeh department. Prime lenses, especially portrait lenses like the 85mm or 50mm, are often bokeh champions. Zoom lenses can deliver too, but you’ll have to work a little harder. And, of course, every lens has its own “bokeh personality,” ranging from smooth circles to quirky, polygonal shapes.

    The Science of Beautiful Blur

    If you’re more of a “just take the picture” person, feel free to skip this section. For the rest of you, here’s the nerdy bit. The quality of bokeh is influenced by the shape of the lens’s aperture blades. More blades or rounded blades create smoother bokeh, while fewer blades can lead to geometric shapes in your blur. So yes, when photographers talk about the “creamy” bokeh of their lenses, they’re really just geeking out about some fancy polygons. And no, you can’t judge them (too harshly).

    Why Does Bokeh Matter?

    Beyond looking cool, bokeh serves a purpose. It draws attention to your subject by simplifying the background, letting the viewer focus on what really matters—whether that’s a person, a product, or your dog wearing sunglasses. It’s the unsung hero of portrait and macro photography, turning chaos into calm and ordinary settings into extraordinary scenes.

    A Final Word on Bokeh (and Life)

    Here’s the thing about bokeh: it’s a reminder that not everything in life needs to be in sharp focus. Sometimes, the magic happens in the background, in the blur, in the places your eye doesn’t immediately land. So embrace it. Play with it. And if anyone asks why you’re so obsessed with blurry lights, just say it’s art. They don’t have to understand it—they just have to admire it.

    And there you have it: your ultimate guide to bokeh. Now, grab your camera, find some fairy lights, and go make the world a little blurrier. In a good way.

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