Jan 22: Blown Out Candle

I almost didn't take a picture today, as I was in the mood to get things done, and since that hardly ever happens, I didn't want to waste it. I got the things done that I wanted (including putting away Christmas decorations - now you know what I mean when I say I hardly ever get things done), and thought of an idea, so I went for it. This was the last decoration to put away, so this symbolizes the end of the Christmas season (yeah, I know that was weeks ago!):

50mm, 1.3sec, f/1.8, ISO 1000, manual mode, camera set on the table using the timer, no post-processing

• To get this shot I lit the candle, started the timer on the camera, then right before it was going to shoot, I blew out the candle. I wanted to catch the smoke drifting up. The room was dark with some light coming in from another room.
• I took a lot of pictures before this one for the setup. The focus is not the greatest, and I wish I had moved the camera so more of the smoke was in the frame, but I didn't want to take even more pictures because I was afraid the fire alarm would go off. (No, seriously.)
• I learned a very important lesson today. When I was taking this picture in aperture priority mode, it kept being really dark. I finally figured out that with the timer, the camera records the exposure when you first start the timer (when I had the candle lit), NOT when it takes the picture 15 seconds later (when I had blown out the candle). So I tried not using the timer, but the picture came out too shaky. And then I had a revelation...MANUAL!!! I've been so stuck in aperture priority (it really does work for most shots), that I hardly ever use manual. I really should change that.