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Very beautiful still life shot! Great composition and light.

Best regards Carola

One thing that makes this work is the strong texture, which you get from the relatively undiffused cross-lighting. It also throws cross shadows which seem like artifacts--you've got a lit candle here, and it seems extraneous because it evidently isn't contributing to the lighting.

You might try a technique called "painting with light," in which you open the shutter in a dark room (except for the candle), and apply a raking light to all surfaces by passing something like a penlight over them. If you keep moving and keep the light source covered, neither your hand nor the source will show up in the picture. You'll certainly end up with a lot of failed exposures, but you may get one result that repays all the trouble.