Here's a really neat trick you'll want to add to your photo editing tool chest. When you're wanting to add a specific texture to some background, you can simply use flour and the "Multiply" blending mode to create any texture you like.
I've been living out of my car and driving all over the country to create new work. This past Sunday, I stopped near Nashville, Tennessee to see my friend and fellow photographer Marissa Bolen. While there, we collaborated to put together a photo shoot -- a shoot that involved a homemade dam, water, milk, and girls covered with flour.
Dancers are often photographed with off-camera flashes and powder in order to capture their movement. Photographer Ben Franke recently completed a project titled Parkour Motion in which he used the same concept, except for parkour practitioners (called "traceurs") rather than dancers.
You can light up particles in the air for a snazzy effect. The photos in this post were done by shining a powerful focused light into the air in various weather conditions during a long exposure. You need a light source that outputs some major power to pull off the effect. I used a Coast HP21 and a 3000 lumen Stanley spotlight for these shots. The photo above was shot while it was snowing.