TEAlight Valentine experiment

Today I'll be joining Kimmie and all my Tea Tuesday friends by celebrating Valentine's day with a photography experiment. I've made no secret of the fact I have a lousy camera, and now I also must save my photos at very low resolution in order to save space on this blog (since Blogger no longer recognizes my photos from an off site storage location).


If you dropped by yesterday, you saw I showed a similar image using 21 tea lights. That setting was actually created over a week ago. After I took the photos, I stuck the tea lights in candle holders all over the house and, almost like magic, the rooms took on a warm glow. It wasn't until after they had burned out and I went looking for replacement tea lights, that I found


this Valentine inspired tea cup candle I bought sometime last year. I tried to photograph it on my dining room table under nothing more than the four forty-watt bulbs attached to my fan/light. Even lightening the photo in Photoshop didn't help.


That's when I headed to my kitchen table, trying to get a good photo with the two 100-watt light bulbs that sit directly over my kitchen table.


That lighting is so bright, it gives the appearance of a flash, but I assure you, I try NEVER to use a flash when photographing my art, or other items on either of my tables. So after taking over 60 photos of the candle in the kitchen, I became hopeful I had at least ONE that would pass for acceptable on my blog.

Further, it never occurred to me to use that same heart photos from before, because I wasn't thinking Valentine Tea (light) when I was burning the other tea lights down to their metal containers; containers I can now use in my art and altered books.


So, last night I laid out more tea lights, this time 15. I attempted to make the heart look more like the one on the cup candle, thus the reason for less tea lights. I then took nearly two dozen photos using nothing more than the lighting from the tea lights. I liked the warmth this photo gave off , but I was hoping the candles in front would have been in better focus.


I turned on the lights in the dining room (remember there is a total of 160 watts spread out over 4 bulbs all pointed in different directions) for this shot. No better clarity, and a bit less "warmth."


Finally, I turned on the camera flash and took one that way. This time, none of the candles in front look lit, but there is also no halo around the flames, and the cup is clear and bright.

They (who "they" are, I'm not entirely sure) say practice makes perfect, so I will continue to experiment and practice until I get a better camera.

Now let's enjoy our favorite drink, maybe even photograph it, and celebrate Valentine's Day, while visiting Kimmie for the links to today's Tea Tuesday posts.