The other day I was browsing through the featured pictures section in Wikipedia when I saw this incredible picture of a match igniting. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Streichholz.jpg
My first thought was that I could surely take a similar picture.
When I got home that evening I got out my camera, a tripod, a box of matches and a lighter and took everything into the kitchen. After inventing a system to hold each match, I set the timer on the camera and started taking pictures.
The idea was to light the match just before the camera took the picture. I figured it was going to be just a question of practice and luck. In the first 20 or so pictures you could see either an unlit match or a burning match, nothing to write home about. But eventually I managed to synchronize everything and after getting 4 or 5 “winners” I decided to call it a day.
When I compared my “winners” with the original Wikipedia picture I realized that I was doing something wrong. I had forgotten to use a flash and for that reason there was no visible smoke in my pictures.
The following day I made another attempt and this time, after adjusting the position of the external flash, I got the definitive pictures!
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