Christina, Drink and Click Portrait – Austin, Texas

I took this photo of Christina at Stay Gold, outside, at night, which was actually brighter than inside the bar. Part of this is because of the festive lights that are strung around the place. I really love those type of lights and I often like to use them as backdrops in my portraits. You can see them as glowing circles around Christina’s head.

At f1.6, even with a comparably small micro 4/3 sensor, you get a decent amount of background blur. The larger aperture is essential for shallow depth of field, which is often incorrectly called bokeh. Bokeh is not the measure of how defocused a background is, rather, it’s the quality of that defocusing. The Panasonic Leica 25mm f1.4, that I mostly use for these portraits, has decent bokeh, though not exceptional.

I was lucky to make this portrait early. Not long after, it was packed with photographers and models. Drink and Click has gotten very popular in Austin, and often, getting a clear shot is one of the most difficult things.