Night shots using ambient light are tricky. Especially when you aren’t totting a tripod around. If you have time to set up a shot using whatever is handy to steady your camera, you might be in luck. Snapping off a photo of a quickly disappearing scene, however, results in but a blur 90% of the time. My friend Noom likes to edit my photos after I load them onto my computer each day. He’s a tough task master. “Burry,” he’ll announce as he rapidly hits the delete key.

The bastard. Sometimes those blurry shots have an appeal of their own. Colors and patterns become more interesting. They can be more evocative of a scene than a clear shot would have been. Or maybe I just hate to let go of a shot I would’ve loved but didn’t manage to get.

This is one such photograph. At the end of our visit to Wat Phan Tao during the Sunday Night Market that coincided with Chiang Mai’s Yi Peng festival, a small group of drummers appeared, reminiscent of the Kodo drummers of Japan. A crowd quickly gathered. Several young monks, either as part of the show or merely moved by the music, began a frenetic dance around the drummers. A sensory overload as the deep beating of the drums filled your chest and the candle lit colors of the swirling monks delighted the eye. Snap.