Cinematic/HIGHLY Vivid/Surreal Type of Photos

[.Joel]

I don't exactly know how to describe it. But I've been looking at photography for a couple of years now but due to my lack of financial income, getting good equitment is really hard. I've been using the PowerShot S2 IS for a couple of years now and it's served me well.

But my parents ordered a Rebel XSi for my birthday, and I really want to learn how to take a certain type of photograph. I don't know how to explain it; I think it'll be best understood if I showed you all samples of what I mean.

A lot of Jeremy Cowart's (http://www.jeremycowart.com/) photos are like this and I found a photographer on flickr (http://flickr.com/photos/chriszhu//) with the same type of pictures I'm refering to.
All the photos have sort of a "dark" look to them, but are EXREMELY vivid and look almost surreal!

I really don't know how else to explain it but to show you the pictures. Does anyone have the slightest clue on how photographers get this effect? It can't be just a cool camera and a special lens, can it? I'm graduating high school this year and I'm gonna study photography in college, so any help, tips, info, etc. would be greatly appreciated!!

Thanks,
Joel

[SlowBlink]

There's a few different looks there but both can be achieved with an XSi. The leaf is a post process technique that mimics bleach bypass in film. The other shots are good blends of dramatic lighting brought out in post production. Not as difficult as it looks when you get the basics under control.

[lsim001]

A lot of it is to do with the lighting but there is also a fair bit of post processing. You can achieve some of the effects with using something easy to use like Lightroom but some of the fancy stuff you'll need Photoshop.

Of course photos can look good with out all the post processing but it helps :)

[bsaber]

I've been trying to develop this kind of look for a month or so now. If anyone knows and is willing to provide a tutorial it'll be appreciated.

[SlowBlink]

Google low key and Rembrandt lighting and you should come across what you need for tutorials. From Wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rembrandt_lighting) From Google (http://video.google.ca/videosearch?hl=en&q=rembrandt+lighting&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=X&oi=video_result_group&resnum=4&ct=title#) Something similar from The Strobist (http://strobist.blogspot.com/2008/07/rembrandt-lighting-um-no.html) These techniques will give you a good basic lighting diagram.