  Many atomic processes result in the emission of photons. Analysis of the
properties of emitted photons, such as energy and angular distribution as well
as polarization, is regarded as a powerful tool for gaining more insight into
the physics of corresponding processes. Another characteristic of light is the
projection of its angular momentum upon propagation direction. This property
has attracted a special attention over the last decades due to studies of
twisted (or vortex) light beams. Measurements being sensitive to this
projection may provide valuable information about the role of angular momentum
in the fundamental atomic processes. Here we describe a simple theoretical
method for determination of the angular momentum properties of the photons
emitted in various atomic processes. This method is based on the evaluation of
expectation value of the total angular momentum projection operator. To
illustrate the method, we apply it to the text-book examples of plane-wave,
spherical-wave, and Bessel light. Moreover, we investigate the projection of
angular momentum for the photons emitted in the process of the radiative
recombination with ionic targets. It is found that the recombination photons do
carry a non-zero projection of the orbital angular momentum.
