Monday, December 18th, 2017
This week’s theme for the Flickr Macro Monday group is “Lit By Candlelight.” From this week’s instructions (from Janet Towbin):
This week’s theme will involve the tricky art of taking a photograph using candlelight as your main (or only) source of lighting. Candlelight gives photographs a warm and diffuse glow that can be quite stunning and dramatic. The intent of this theme is NOT for you to take photos of candles, tea lights and/or flames. Rather, it is for you to utilize candlelight as your LIGHT SOURCE.
Any photo showing an actual candle and/or flame as your subject matter will be removed from the pool. Reflections of candlelight and/or flames appearing on the main subject are acceptable as long as they are incidental to the main subject of your photo.
Here are some suggestions for you to shoot by candlelight:
• Turn off your flash and make certain all other sources of light are either turned completely off or reduced to the lowest light possible.
• Use a tripod for shooting in low light and minimize camera shake by using a remote shutter release or your camera’s self-timer. If you don’t have a tripod, simply place your camera on a flat and steady surface and use the timer.
• Use a low ISO (high ISO will add lots of grain) and a slow shutter speed.
• You may want to add reflective surfaces around your subject if more light is needed. You may also add more candles.
• Experiment with white balance to get the right level of warmth in your photo.
Remember to get in as close as possible—but please keep a healthy distance from the flame! We don’t want to have any scorched eyebrows, blistered fingers or melted cameras!
Some “How To” links:
digital-photography-school.com/14-tips-for-great-candleli…
www.digital-photo-secrets.com/tip/800/candlelight-photogr…
Tag your photos with “Macro Mondays” and this week’s theme: “Lit by Candlelight” or alternatively you may use #MacroMondays and #LitByCandlelight.
Candlelit Angel
This is my tiniest and most favorite ornament. Every year I wait until after December 6th to put up our Christmas tree because my oldest daughter was born on December 6th and I never wanted her birthday to feel shared with Christmas. Now that she’s an adult, I could put up my tree earlier if I wanted but this year I waited until December 13th simply because I was busy. The very last set of ornaments that I put on the tree are the miniatures. This entire angel is about 1.5″ high and I always called my oldest daughter “my little angel on earth,” so this angel ballerina ornament always makes me think of her. 1991 was the year she made me a mom and made Christmas that much more special… seeing life through the eyes of a child.
I wish I had gotten a pull back shot of my setup, it was so elaborate! Last night, I used my dark dining room table as my staging area, used a platter that was tall from which to hang my angel ornament (with a vase on top anchoring her), used two large 3×3 Circle E. Candles to light her from the front, used a tripod to ensure a steady shot, then put a variety of sparkly bits behind my angel to get some pretty bokeh. I’m very pleased with this shot.
Nikon D750 | 105mm | f/4| 1/8 | ISO 1600
Thanks for looking!
