Fire

Fire is an interesting thing. Watch people around a campfire and it’s easy to see the spell it can cast on us. We have such a deep and instinctive relationship with it, there’s no wonder why including flame in a photo can have such an impact. With understanding of how they’re done, let me direct you toward how I create my own fire photos whether your subject is located next to a campfire or coming out of the tunnel at the beginning of a NFL game with fire erupting as your name's been called; the trick to shooting fire will always be the same. 

Fire as the Subject

With these shots, the main draw and focus is on the flame (or effects of it) and the detail that can be shown within it. In most cases you’ll want to use a fast enough shutter speed to freeze motion in order to see the detail in the flame. As always, “fast enough” is relative to what you’re shooting. As your shutter speeds increase you’ll need to use wider apertures. Sometimes, Slower shutter speeds are the key to capturing the kind of photo where more interesting detail will be in what the fire emits.

Underexpose rather than Overexpose

Cameras today such as my iPhone have a minimal amount of dynamic range. This means that you can't recover an amazing amount of detail from the shadows. The same can be said for highlights. But edit-bay apps such as Darkroom in particular does an amazing job recovering the underexposed detail in the photographed image and balancing the composition as a whole.

All Images Copyright - yShots

Location: Shady Brook Farm

Camera Used: iPhone 6S 

Editing Apps: Darkroom, LongExpo