I know this is soft and thanks to a very good observation in a comment I realize I should have worked to light the front apple more than the back group. But I don't think either of those factors completely account for my very low score. Though I have no comments to confirm it as yet, I think it's because I failed to include the candle in the frame - just used the candlelight to create the impact of the photo. Silly me.
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There is a wealth of wonderful information that everyone gave in your thread asking for help and here in the commentary. The only three additional things I can add to that Nikki is something I see on the image when viewing it from the laptop. The PC is fine, but when looking at the image on the brighter screen of the laptop (and this might also explain what a few others saw in the image) there is this odd blue/black halo/shadow under the apple in the foreground, under the bowl to the right side and along the wall to the right. Again, I only see it on the brighter laptop. On the PC the shadows look fine but this just illustrates how different screens show different things.
Lighting in one area for improvement - one suggestion I have that you could do for a future challenge of Still Life or Painting with Light is have a small tea light hidden behind the foreground apple just to light up the outline shape giving it more 'pop' from the background.
Compositionally, you have two of the three recommended groupings from this great source: Paintbasket: how to compose a still-life . The Touching Still Life Object and Separated Still Life Objects. I think it might add more visual interest if you have the foreground apple a little closer (not too close) to the bowl and have it oriented on it side; like it just rolled out of the bowl with the stem angled at a 45 degree away from the basket( so that it points towards the audience but not directly head on)
I encourage you to try this again when a Light Painting or Still Life Challenge rolls around again (of course waiting for those challenges to come along might take too long so you could always just do it for fun and practice:-) ).
I gave this a 5. Softness is a big factor in that, but this is more due to the light instead of the focus. The bight light on the background makes the eye go there first, and finds an out of focus area. Then the eye needs to search, and finally end up on the foreground apple, that is so dark it looks out of focus.
So yeah, as you were commenting above, this is all due to the light (for me, not having a candle visible made no impact).
I gave it a 5. It isn't a bad photo, but like what was already mentioned, the apple in focus is too dark. If the light was hitting the focused apple better or if the focus was on the apples where the light is hitting, I would've gave it a higher score, maybe a 7. The fact that you can't see the flame does not bother me at all.
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