Hi Bebe,
Every photographer needs to understand that our eyes always gravitate to the brightest part of a picture, and will linger there like a moth circling a... Chinese lantern. This is useful to know because with this knowledge we can construct photographs in a way that allows us to control how people view our images.
Let's look at your photograph as an example. You have captured these Chinese lanterns glowing beautiful in the darkness but rather than concentrating on the detail in the lantern in the right of the frame, we are continually drawn across to the left to look at the brighter lantern, even though it lacks the same colour depth and detail.
If I was making this image I would underexpose about “one stop” or more (in other words, use 1/100th of a second rather than 1/50th) to darken the overall image and get more colour saturation occurring. Then I would selectively lighten the central area of the right-hand lantern, to draw our eyes into that area rather than to the left-hand lantern.
Another tip. Try shooting in RAW mode, rather than JPEG. Put simply, RAW gives you many more options to control highlights and shadows.
Cheers,
Anthony
Lanterns - Image Doctor's edited version
