Every year I always make an image of some sort for a Christmas card. Sometimes it?s a physical card, sometimes an ecard, sometimes an animated gif; but these have never appeared on my blog.

Therefore my New Year?s resolution is to make a post of my Christmas image for the record and so that anyone viewing this blog who hasn?t received a Seasonal Greeting from me may get one. This image, taken during the switching on of the Christmas lights in Bideford was an experiment with Photoshop CS5?s HDR capability. Rather than combining images with a range of exposure, I combined a variety of the same exposure but with different parts of a laser show, people in different places and all of this at a slow exposure which blurs a lot of the movement. It isn?t a straight HDR either because that combined image was then merged with a couple of others taken from the same place, and some of these were made through intentionally adding some movement to the camera mid-way through an exposure. I?m really pleased with the result because it makes a very disappointing display, from a spectator’s point of view standing in torrential rain, into a real light spectacular.