Bokeh is one of those things that confuses the question of what is real in a photograph.

It’s absolutely what what was captured by the lens. There are no Photoshop effects, no Instagram filters, no mathematical convolution. It’s exactly what the lens saw.

So why can’t we see a bunch of fairy lights in the same way? Try as I might, staring at the fairly lights, then at my finger and then off to the distance, the never looked like this.

Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 943, Red Bokeh’ 1/15s f/2.8, ISO200 190mm