Would appreciate advise. I would like to position a light to simulate light from a candle flame, candle held in the hand, so need the realistic soft all round glow such a light would have, with that close body proximity. I can paint this well enough ( being a veteren ! ) but would like to attempt this in Poser. Many thanks in advance for any and all suggestions and advise.

Aside from positioning and coloring of your light, one of the things to tweak till it gives you wanted effect would be fallof. 
If I'm visualizing this right, candle light doesn't cast a lot of light, so your falloff distance should be rather short, and pretty rapidly declining at first.

This is conceptually and off the top of my head, I don't know the exact names of setting and dials. I'll have to get that little later, when I have tiome to fire up poser.

Click the pics to see them bigger.

The falloff setting Conniekat mentioned is controlled by the "Dist End" dial in the light properties panel. It essentially controlls how far the light will travel, if set to zero it will go on forever.

Thanks for all that advise ! Really appreciate it, and will have another coffee and give it a whirl !