Sheila - I love shooting candlelight (and shooting subjects in candlelight too). Postwork on flame images can also help to bring out more of its beauty. Hope you don't mind, played with it just a tiny bit (slight blurred, screened layer with a bit of a hit to the highlights to pop the flames a bit).

Shooting by any open flame can be tough. The flickering light makes it a little difficult to judge proper exposure. I think one of the tricks to photographing fire is in your shutter speed. You need to balance it and the aperture so that the you capture flame and that beautiful light, but don't lose all detail in the fire. It's hard to strike that balance sometimes.

As for the bird ... hmmm ... the lighting on it looks a little flat.

-=>Donald