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 2000 saw the biggest turning point in the history of my displays. It was not the biggest setup in numbers of bulbs alone, but was overall bigger and brighter than before- fundamentally different to all previous years in that I used All American Lights, not one domestic-bought set. Classic large-bulb types too, that would not have been out of place on an American home 50 years ago, some may even have been that old but most were not.
This year saw the first time I ran lights right around the roofline- even over the high-up apex part to the left, thanks to an ingenious method I devised to fix them there- find out about this in the photo galleries. Also for a little bit of contrast, I used a little bit of more modern lighting- miniature sets arranged in a "light-tree" formation, which faded colour from blue to green and back again.  In 2000, my picture-taking method changed too. Coupled with a new video stills capture system, I used a Sony video camera to "snap" pictures of the lights, wandering round and hovering in close on various aspects of the display setup, then playing the tape back and grabbing stills at the appropriate points. I took so many that I have had to break them down into 4 seperate galleries, under the 4 main categories they fell under- daytime, nighttime, behind-the-scenes, and some pictures I took when it snowed! Finally there was a small web-cam I installed, which I would take stills from and add them to the little web page I had at the time, usually every day. Find a complete archive of these shots below.
 Note that this list applies to the days following switchon night, before which time the display was not fully installed... - Roofline- a total of 60 C9 bulbs, 2x 25s and one 10-set (opaque multicolour). - Upstairs window, left- 23 C7 lights (opaque, multicolour). - Upstairs window, middle- 15 C9 lights (opaque, multicolour), LED matrix message sign (red). - Upstairs window, right- 23 C7 lights (opaque, multicolour). - Downstairs window, left- 24 C7 lights (opaque, multicolour). - Above front door- 25 C9 lights (opaque- red, blue). - Front door- In ring on door- tiny 25-bulb series set (red, yellow, blue, green), along guttering and round pillar- 25 C9 lights (opaque, multicolour), in windows either side- 2x 10 C6 series-wired lights (opaque, multicolour). - Downstairs window, right- 24 C7 lights (opaque, multicolour). - Along path by front door- 25 C9 lights (opaque- multicolour*). - On garage roof- 600-bulb light tree structure (blue, green), topped with a Xenon strobe beacon (red). ## TOTAL LIGHTS- 890 (not counting the LED sign) ## Notes- * These were originally all clear, but were later replaced with multicolours as the clear ones were too bright, I felt. Originally there were an additonal 15 C9 lights in a bush by the driveway, and 15 C9s round the garage but these were removed after the first night when the transformer failed, and the bulbs eventually were used in the path set. They were not replaced. |
