How we love a background brimming with colourful, sparkly bokeh! These bubbles of light create a beautiful effect and add interest and life to a soft, out of focus background.

Bokeh stems from a Japanese word translating to ‘blur’, and refers to the aesthetic quality of the out-of-focus or blurry area of a photo, often in the background, but also possible in the foreground. Out-of-focus pinpoints of light, or specular highlights in the background, create the most obvious bokeh, as they are converted into well-defined, bright circles of light.

This is the penultimate challenge in Emerge and we are here to celebrate all that delicious sparkly light.

Here, in no particular order are our top 10 images from this challenge. Well done to the photographers who created this beautiful work showcasing the bond between these best buddies.

Charlotte & Craig 🐶 📸 ✨

We provide video feedback on all images submitted for the challenge, and from there, we select our Top 20 and Top 10. Without further ado, here are the Top 10 images for this challenge!

Camilla Johannessen | Hundefoto.nu

There's a lovely engagement with the dog here which draws you in to the image. The fine details are nicely captured and edited with some lovely bokeh in the background but also in the tiny drops of dew on the grass.

Dawn McBride | Fuzzy Love Photography

It's all about the bokeh in this image! But this basset hound has some attitude too and has been well lit, with great catchlights in the eyes.

Erica Harvey | Erica Lane Photography

The light on the subject is great and brings out the textures in the fur and their expression is fantastic. The coloured bokeh is nicely spaced throughout the background and adds a real sense of fun that works beautifully with this young pup.

Jordyn Bobo | Golden Atlas Photography

This is a lovely portrait and the subject has a super engaging expression. There's lots of harmonious coloured bokeh in the background, just what we're looking for in the Bokehlicious challenge!

Kate Maxwell | Kate Maxwell Photography

The blue and red bokeh, sometimes merging to create purple is wonderful. The heart-shaped gap for the dog is a nice touch and the dog is well-lit and has a great expression.

Kristy Wallis | Borderfame Photography

What a joyful image, helped by the warm tones and bokeh framing the subject. But mostly carried by that wonderful expression and pose of the dog.

Linda Van Oeffelen-Brosens | Jinterwas Photography

What a fantastic narrative, we can hear the caterwauling from here! The bokeh creates some nice depth and framing, the mirrorballs are a nice addition to add context to the story.

Nikki Jennifer | Nikki Jennifer Photography

This is a fantastic visual representation of how it feels to have gentle water droplets cool you down on a hot day! There's so much depth in the image created with the different shapes and sizes of bokeh.

Sherry Glassman | Sherry Glassman

The city at night is a great place for creating bokeh and it has been done really well here. The dog is well lit, and there's a little bit of attitude in the pose and expression!

Tobi Smith

This warm, natural bokeh is lovely and combined with this giant dog, it creates really lovely, relaxing analogous colour scheme of similar hues. The wider angle creates a nice swirl of bokeh through the background.

Emerge is the intermediate 6-month interactive challenge-based dog photography course in our Unleashed Challenges series, focusing on helping you to expand your shooting shot list and learn valuable new skills.

Emerge is open to students who have previously completed the first course in the series, Embark.

Want to be the first to hear when Embark opens for enrolment each year? Register your interest here.