Nice questions!

Here is what I did to take the following photos

1. Choose your room. It should be dark. I took my photos at night with only the candles lighting the area.

2. Set up your still life in an arrangement that you are satisfied with. I used a serving tray table to provide easy movement of the arrangement to the background.

3. The background, you don't need to get too fancy here, but you can if you like. I put the table right up close to a white door (about 8 inches from it). If you want to get more creative you could use some red or black velvet, or many other things that accept or absorb light depending upon what you want. I chose white because I knew it would splash light all over when the subject matter was lit from the back, and it would also accept shadows well when lit from the front.

4. Place your candles. I found another box to place the candles on that sat just below the back of the serving tray table. This placed the candles about 4 inches from the backdrop and about 9 to 12 inches from the subject matter. This also allowed the candle light to come from behind and below the subject material. In my case I was using jarred candles so this helped hide them as well as light the subject matter in the best light. If you want a candle in the shot i suggest it be smaller than your background candles.

5. Position your camera. I was using a 50 mm set lens to try and mimic your settings however I had a full frame sensor vs your asp-c. no worries though, just move the camera farther back. My 50 mm is like you with a 75 mm.

6. Get your camera settings adjusted.

   -My ISO was anywhere from 400 (my favorite) to 1600 ISO. Usually in low light I like to increase my ISO a bit versus opening up the aperture or increasing the shutter time. I do this because I've found that the photo consumes more color and it also adds a bit more ambiance to low light scenes. Which might be what you want in a candle lit scene.

   -My shutter fluctuated from 1" (second), to about 5" timing throughout the photos.

   -My aperture was between f8 and f16, but i preferred the f8 setting. With the exposure set similar to how i had it you will notice your in camera light meter reading about 1 stop below the midpoint exposure. This helped me get my subjects silhouetted.

   -White balance was on manual mode and all the way down to 2500k, but I did adjust that to 2700k and I thought it looked better. This is just near the tungsten setting of 3200k.

And here are my results:

• Original Image
• f8
• 5 second exposure
• ISO 400
• 50 mm (Full Frame)
• WB 2700K
• No corrections
• 2 Candles behind subjects by 10" and flame just above table height
• Camera position: 18 - 24 inches from subject, approx 36 inches from background door.

• Same Image: Minor corrections to contrast, color and clarity

• Same Setup: Moved camera back

• Same Setup: 1 candle to side, second candle same center location behind subject

• Similar Setup: 2 candles in front of subject 18" out perfectly in line with each other to cast 1 shadow.

• Same Setup: 2 candles in front of subject 18" out perfectly in line with each other to cast 1 shadow. -Shadow only

• This is a mask style silhouette. I normally take these photos with a whiteboard or bright light in the background, however this uses 2 candles. The distance from the door to the candles is 4 inches. The distance from the candles to the 3D lattice object is about 8 feet. The camera is using an equivelent to your asp-c 60mm lens and is about 3 to 4 feet from the object.

Hope that helps. Happy snapping!