Langkawi,
also known as the "Jewel of Kedah", is a tropical archipelago of c. 100 islands in the
Andaman Sea, some 30 km off the mainland coast of northwestern Malaysia. The islands are part of the Sultanate of Kedah,
which is adjacent to the Thai border. By far the largest of the islands is the
eponymous Langkawi Island with a population of c. 65,000 and the town of Kuah as largest town, of which c.
90% are ethnoreligious Muslim Malays; the other ethnic groups consist mainly of Chinese, Indians and
Thais.
Langkawi
was a haven for pirates which affected the northern part of the Malacca Strait
and it remained as a quiet backwater until 1986 CE, when the then prime
minister of Malaysia, Mahathir Mohamad, decided to transform the archipelago into a tourist
place. The island rapidly grew as a tourist destination, and by 2012 CE, it had
received over 3 million tourists a year, with many of them from Asia and the Middle East.
Langkawi
is a duty-free island which means that beer and booze can be bought at
rock-bottom prices (320-ml cans of beer from MYR 1.50 or US$ 0.35 per can;
1,000-ml bottles of Scotch from MYR 20.00 or US$ 4.70 per bottle). Though
Malaysian law discourages Muslims from imbibing alcoholic beverages, tourists and the
rest of the population are free to do so…
A Few Words on Bokeh
Most of the street portraits above show a (more or less) sharp subject and a blurred
background which is called bokeh.
It derives from the Japanese word boke, which means "blur" or
"haze". Adjectives that describe a pleasing bokeh include:
smooth, sweet, silky, soft, and excellent… but what exactly is it?
Bokeh is defined as the effect of a soft
out-of-focus background that one gets when photographing a subject, using a fast
lens, at the widest aperture, such as f/2.8 or even wider, e.g., as in this blog post about Langkawi, the fast and
robust Nikkor AF-S FX 50mm f/1.8G prime lens together with the reliable cropped-sensor Nikon D3100. Although bokeh is
actually a characteristic of the photograph, the lens used determines the shape
and size of the visible bokeh.
I mostly shoot street portraits with the lens wide open, using a shooting mode of
Aperture Priority or Manual. Manual gives me the ability to choose both my
aperture and shutter speed, whereas Aperture Priority allows me to choose the
best f/stop (e.g. my preferred f/3.2 ... f/3.5)
while the camera chooses automatically the appropriate shutter speed for the
exposure.
One little trick: by increasing the distance between the background and the
subject, I can further enhance the bokeh in my images. Another option is
to decrease the distance between the camera and model.
Bokeh can add softness to an otherwise brightly lit
photograph. Using this technique to separate the subject from the background allows me to utilise a sometimes not-so-photogenic background which helps to highlight the subject, not detract from
her or him.
High-res portrait photographs with full exif data, precise geotags and technical details in Matt Hahnewald's
