How does one go about taking a picture where the subject in the foreground is in focus and the background is blurred. Like this:


Do I use a really slow shutter speed? I'm still trying to wrap my head around apertures and f-stops and all that jazz.

on the contrary, a faster shutter speed will decrease the depth of field (assuming you have semi-auto settings) by increasing the aperture (which is what determine the DOF)

The easy way to do it, although you have less control, is to set the camera to the portrait setting. Even most point-and-shoot cameras have this setting. Usually the symbol looks like a persons face.

you must make sure the background is go really fast and the man must not move at all!!!! its so simple man

Of course! duh!

Thanks for the tips guys.

You need to use a small f-stop (which is a large aperture). That photo was taken using a f-stop of 1.4 which is pretty 'fast' and lets lots of light in. Shutter speed doesn't matter (although usually shutter speed will need to increase because of more light reaching the film/sensor).
To change the f-stop you could just put your camera into aperture priority mode (if it has it) and adjust it directly, or manual mode or one of the aforementioned 'portrait' type automatic modes.

You could also use a longer focal length lens, which will also help decrease the depth of field. Depth of field is the amount of the image that is acceptably sharp with respect to distance, eg. the image is in focus from 2 feet to 3 feet distance - the depth of field is 1 foot.

Some reasonably simple reading on depth of field
http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutori ... -field.htm
There are loads of links explaining it on google.

Some nice photos showing shallow depth of field and interesting bokeh
http://fiveprime.org/hivemind/Tags/bokeh,leica
Pretty exotic gear though.

awesome....thanks!

It also depends on the lense. It's real hard to achieve a photo like that with a point and shoot unless you are minimum focal distance for your subject and your background is far away from the subject. It's easier to get this effect with a better lense.