Kibo informs me that "Ted Kerin" stated
that:

http://home.earthlink.net/~tfkerin/sample-2.jpg

I hadn't heard of "hot pixels" causing this effect -- very interesting,
although it's odd how the speckles follow a pattern around objects.

It's most likely your flash reflecting from specks of airborne dust.
I've seen it many times in flash photos, especially in close up shots
like your sample. And if you think those 'sparkles' look weird, try
taking a flash shot straight after someone's just exhaled some cigarette
smoke in front of you - even if you can barely see it yourself, the
cloud lights right up from the flash & can completely block whatever you
were trying to photograph.

The worst is when you're photographing a band that thinks lots of fog on
the stage looks really cool, because it severely limits the amount of
flash that you can use. If I can't convince the effects person to keep
the fog below waist-high (or they screw up), I'll turn off the flash
altogether & get the lighting folk to give me enough light to work with.

--
W
. | ,. w , "Some people are alive only because
\|/ \|/ it is illegal to kill them." Perna condita delenda est
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