Christmas Lights and Bokeh

Bokeh, eh?  I'm ashamed to admit that I wasn't sure what this was the first time I saw it.  I knew it had something to do with photography and getting a good picture, but I had to go look it up!  Kevin and Amanda had a fun idea to take some pictures in front of the tree and see how you can change up your bokeh.  Your bokeh is the amount of blurriness behind your subject and is really fun to play with when you have Christmas lights in the background.
I have very limited photography skills.  I use a Kodak EasyShare Z915.  It's a point and shoot camera, but it also has the ability to go into manual mode and play with the settings.  I thought it would be a good introductory camera to try to figure out "Manual Mode," ISO, Aperture, Shutter Speed and all those other terms I'm still learning.  I love my camera and love that I have the ability to adjust my settings.  I play around with it all  the time.  Usually on my blog posts you see the one photo that I think looks decent, what you don't see is the 20 others I take to find one decent one! :)
After seeing K&A's fantastic cupcake and Christmas tree photos, I decided to play around a little bit.  I did this one evening when C got home from work and Little Man was chasing him around.  So I had about 5 minutes to play with it before we were headed out the door!  I'm definitely going to experiment more, but this was fun for a first try.  I've included my camera settings for each photo below it.

f/3.8

1/5 sec.

ISO-800

f/6.8

1/2 sec.

ISO-1600

f/3.8

1/5 sec.

ISO-1600

So in about 5 minutes, I manage to play around with the camera and test out my settings.  Personally, I like the first one.  I think the angel stands out pretty well and the lights in the background look nice and twinkly.  Which one is your favorite?

You can find some other really great holiday photos here:

Kevin and Amanda - bokeh post

Kevin and Amanda - Christmas tree bokeh tutorial

The Pioneer Woman - bokeh photo gallery (there are some really amazing photos here, check them out if you have the time)  You will be inspired!