Soot volume fractions have been measured in laminar partially premixed flames in a jet flow geometry. These measurements show that initial addition of air to the fuel stream causes the overall soot emission to increase, meaning that addition of air can have adverse effects at high equivalence ratios on sooting behavior of partially premixed flames. For ethylene, soot level is brought below that of diffusion flames at equivalence ratio near 10. The soot volume fraction distributions in the flame, however, are similar to that of laminar diffusion flames for the range of equivalence ratio considered. Soot is first formed in the annular region, and at a downstream location soot is observed in the central region in laminar partially premixed flames.