Thanks! Lighting is my favorite part of photography.

Thanks! I used to post on here a lot, but it's been awhile.

Thanks!

A behind the scenes image for this photo can be found on Instagram here.

Awhile back I was going through historical paintings and came across one by Joseph Wright of Derby of a girl reading by candlelight where the candle is obscured by the paper. I decided to light this almost entirely with candles with a small amount of help from a gridded modeling lamp to bring up the candle stick on the table a little.

And here I'm 4 months late in replying! :) Thank you! I think your color choices here are really interesting and you've rendered the eyes in a really cool way!

You know how the bureaucracy goes. Lots of paperwork.

Hi, how's it going, so anyway...

Yup, needed the ambient light of the candle to come through better when mixed with studio lighting, so I slowed the shutter speed.

Thanks! So much practice. I appreciate when the effort is noticed!

I had melted them down a little beforehand and then about 1.5 hours sitting there.

Yup! Poured hot wax down in one layer and then stuck the candles into it and let them melt.

These candles have a low melting point so not too terribly hot!

Haha, we've all been there; we've all been there.

Haha, yeah, it amused me too when I saw the BTS. I do have some bustle skirts, but I didn't feel like carting them out for this, haha.

Got it here. They have lots of other blouses as well.

This is the link. They have a lot of other blouses too!

Much appreciated! It helps that it's my favorite part of photography, so I enjoy practicing it. Sometimes I just sit on my couch and play with the lighting program for a few hours. It also helps to thinking about lighting dynamically. Like in this one, I could have centered the background light, but I put it behind the candles on the backdrop to make it appear like they were casting the glow.

The candles have a low melting point, so it's not too hot! No burns. And after the first layer, I didn't even feel it at all.

About an hour and a half.

Thank you so much! I've been helped so much by other photographers posting BTS shots, so I'm trying to pay it forward.