As I'm building a portfolio for my wife's glass art, I'm learning more about lighting the curved glass (and the headaches that come with it). This piece is a weaved candleholder that is beautiful during the day, but is absolutely stunning at night when the candle is lit.
For this image, I placed the glass in a dark photo cube and placed a small tea light candle inside. Camera was set at 24mm and 2.5 sec exposure. Overall, I'm pretty satisfied with the photo... Of course, it could always be better.
Do you think it would be better to stack several exposures to bring out the flame of the candle instead of having the small blown out white spot where the flame would be? What would you do to make this better?
Try different styles and see what's most appealing. Stacking exposures would allow recovery of beautiful detail in the glass. Though if the blending isn't light, it'd sacrifice realism where hot spots exist when viewed with the naked eye.
The candlelight cast through the glass art is in the foreground and stops shy of the edges. Is there a way you can show this going further around? The base would naturally fall into darkness, but I feel the sides need a bit more separation.