Striking Matches

My friend, Alan, sent me a link the other day to this awesome post about photography tips, which had a link to a page on smoke art photography, which I have got to try. The problem is that I don't own, nor have I ever owned, any incense, which is rather critical to the smoke photography concept, at least for beginners. But that got me thinking as to whether or not I could capture the striking of a match. Last night I made a few attempts to capture a match strike, trying various methods. I'm not all that happy with the results, but some of the shots are pretty nice.

First I tried a strobe flash technique like I used for the coin bouncing, but that didn't work very well. All the rest of the photos are from single one or half second long exposures with no flash.

A spark, but no flame.

Ignition! At this point I realized I needed a lower point of view.

Cool smoke!

I tried going the other way.

This is my favorite, because you can clearly see the arc of fire coming off the matchbox. If I do any more of these, I think I'll have to try a slightly wider angle.