This was my feeble attempt to experiment with Hedgecoe's "Using Candlelight". My original plan was to illuminate only the face. Everything else is covered with garments. That's where things start to go wrong. I adjusted the brightness/contrast until I could see only trace outlines of the garments. I didn't pay enough attention to others (including my other monitors ) that may not be able to calibrate their monitors to view the picture as I was seeing it.
Add some cropping issues and likely an uninteresting picture to most people and the result seems predictable.
Overall I'm happy with the picture. I did what I set out to do and learned a lot from the experience.
my feeling is most of the black space on the left is unnecessary. My eye is also drawn more to the candle which makes your prop more the subject of interest than the person's face.
This is a cool technique. It can yield nice photos if you leave the shutter open for a longer period of time and watch the noise level. I think this is just a little too dark and seems to not be terribly steady on the face. The candle seems to be perfectly still but the face seems soft. Did you use a tripod for this shot? How long was the exposure? Is the subject wearing something around his neck and head or is this totally based on the light produced by the candle? Good idea.
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