Bokeh.

After spending most of the day catching up with the cinema accounts, I set about a little photographic exercise. I belong to an on-line camera club, occasionally commenting on various issues and, equally occasionally posting pictures that I took for Blip - if I think they’re relevant. Very occasionally, I am drawn into discussions that I would be better avoiding. Thus it was, that having foolishly explained how to obtain interesting bokeh effects (never having actually done it) I felt obliged to provide a demonstration.
 
I consider the effect to be a gimmick, a curiosity with no artistic merit; a silly statement to make as someone is sure to dig a fantastic photograph out of the woodwork to prove me wrong. However, not having anything better to Blip today, I set to the task. The result is like Philip Harben’s deep fried ice cream, it has absolutely no merit what-so-ever - and the process wasn’t aided by a few difficulties.
First, I was honour-bound to use a bridge camera, not the best tool for the job.
Second, I had difficulty finding some fairy lights and, worse, finding somewhere to stick them,
Third, even though the star cut-outs were as big as I could make them, they were still extremely fiddly; I even tried side-stepping the issue by looking on Amazon who do star-burst filters, but that’s not quite the same thing. Perhaps aluminium foil would be a better material than black card.
 
It is puzzling that the yellow star is somewhat hairy