I'm told the problem may be my monitor but truly, all I see in this is what looks like it might be an earring. Everything else is so dark, I can barely even see any shape or form.
Yo,
Well I think that the Candle isn't throwing enough light. It's too dark. Most is just a dark void. You can barly make out the camera, and I think that your earing? is a tad distracting.
I think this is a tad too dark, especially taking into considering that a good portion of your face is blocked by something that is entirely black (the tripod and camera). It's also not to your benefit that other people did shots with candles, and rather them just being "low light" shots, the candle light is more focused, allowing you to still see a good amount of detail in the subject.
on a side note, from what i can see of your face, you remind me of Chino Moreno.