Tea light session at PJG part 2

Hello all,

This is another photo that was the hot ticket item from last Wednesday. Too many tripods to count. As usual, I try for something different. No use if we all take the exact same thing;)

Anyways, I went down to f/22 to at least star out the flames, but I don't know if I should've come in so close. Let me know if this works for you or not.

Kevin

Totally love the candle capture and very nice fg. I kinda wish the top of the thing didn't touch the top of the frame. Cool picture tho.

I actually like the way the candle tower is cropped. It's a very graphic composition, with the (4) tea light cubes banding down from the top, and hoverin above a very minimal green base. I wonder if the background of the sunlight through the branches could be toned down a bit. The large tree branch mid right frame, (and continues at the upper left of the candle tower) breaks the continuity of the background in my opinion. Perhaps some burning of the background foliage?

Thanks for your thoughts on this, Janet & Chris. I did think of burning some of the BG, but I wanted to see if there was any opinions on comp before continuing on. I'll take another look.

Kevin

Love what you did with the candles! That was good thinking. I wish the top of the top of the lamp wasn't cut off. The bg is not helping your subject very much here, either, imo. In that sense I like your first image much better.
What would make this better is a more uniform bg that isolates the subject. I sometimes do a gaussian blur of the bg to do that, but that would be incongruous with the starred candles from the f22. Anyway, just a thought.

Thanks for you thoughts, Catherine. Hmmmm, maybe a B&W here We'll see after this winter when I go through the archives.

Kevin