Chris Valle was enjoying a day out with his family at the Gardena Buddhist Church Obon Festival, a Japanese Buddhist “Day of the Dead” celebration, when he was particularly inspired by one

musician. “[I] saw Shih-wei ‘Willie’ Wu from UC Irvine’s Jodaiko really bringing his energy and passion to their taiko performance,” Valle said. Wanting to really capture the emotion Wu was

bringing to his performance, Valle maximized the shutter speed on his Canon EOS 5D Mark II to “freeze [Wu’s] action and expression.” _Each week, we’re featuring photos of Southern California

submitted by readers. Share your photos on our Flickr page or tag your photos with #socalmoments on Instagram and Twitter. Follow us on Twitter or visit latimes.com/socalmoments for more on