A quick one this morning, an experimental shot done the other night while I was alongside a railing strung with white holiday lights. The Mamiya 80mm macro lens wide open at f4 is what’s largely responsible for the effect, and basic lens traits; the balls are simply point light sources well out of focus. All out-of-focus things have the exact same effect through a lens, but most times they’re not very bright against a black background, so the effect is weak, overlapping everywhere and washing out to a blur. It can also easily be done with dust or mist in the air illuminated by a flash, and then you can say you’re photographing “ghosts” or “orbs” or some such idiocy, if you like.
The only further trick is finding the arrangement of lights that will look best in your frame. This was one of several that I took in two minutes, the one I liked the best.