Lights are cool, especially when you throw them out of focus.

Like in this snap from the other night – most people’s nightmare, my happiness:

Look at the out-of-focus lights in the background. Nice?

Surely for this kind of shot you need an f/1.4 lens?

Nope. I shot that at f/4 (you can see the shapes are not quite round: with a wide-open lens they would have been).  The reason I got the blur is that I was close – very close.

So – open your lens, put lights in the background, and get close.