Bokeh!

'Bokeh', commonly known as background blur, which is the intentional out of focus area in a picture provides great aesthetic quality to a picture. To practice, try to find a simple subject outdoors accompanied with lots of natural light, like a stem or a flower with some depth of field in order to isolate your subject from its background... set your desired exposure according to the amount of natural light present, also have a wide open aperture which will help keep the shot in soft focus, then manually focus on your subject or a small point of interest on the subject (in the foreground only) and click...

The picture below is my attempt at Bokeh during a morning walk by Thames, I took this picture of a long thorny stem while focusing on a small section of the stem in the foreground as shown below.

Bokeh ~ By Mattu

To Blur or To Focus?!

Look for an interesting architectural feature or a simple branch/leaf to shoot your subject from... manually focus on the feature while the main-subject blurs in the background, or simply focus on the main-subject through the feature, blurring the foreground... both can be very interesting. Check out the pictures below of a grand manor house now a Hotel/B&B in Cotswolds, captured through it's boundary fence. 

Lower Slaughter - Cotswolds, UK ~ By Mattu

Lower Slaughter - Cotswolds, UK ~ By Mattu