Tips for photographing fire and flames

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Dr. Lalit kishore

19 January, 2012

Generally, photography needs diffused light either from the sun, flash or spot light. But the same is not true for photographing fire and flames.

FOR PHOTOGRAPHING flames, fire itself is treated as the primary source of light. Fire and its flames provide great opportunities for creative side due to their peculiar changing shapes. The fire forms and peculiar flames when captured in a camera provide images are subtle and abstract with the flames dancing around.

While taking the photograph of fire and flames, there should be no external light or the area should be dark and the only light entering the camera should be that of the fire or flames. In other words, the background should be dark.

Keep the aperture small but slow down the shutter speed to highlight the dancing shapes of the flame and forms of the dark intervening areas. To begin with, take the shots of the flame 1/6th of a second shutter speed and f/8 aperture. You may experiment around this camera setting to get a variety of pictures to get a good depth of field in the flame itself. Also, take photographs from different positions and angles to select the best one.

Attached picture was taken on Lohri festival when a small bonefire was lit in a house in Jaipur.