Brand new to indoor shooting, look for a similar effect.

I have seen some really neat pics like this where the background is basically gone and you only see certain areas of the model. I bought a black sheet @ walmart just to mess around, but it wasnt even close. Seem to always light the background up too much. Can this be done @ home with an average setup or am I lookn at an expensive setup to get the look? Thanks!

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you should be able to do it in photoshop.
whats at home and average setup.
IE
how big is the room so how far away will the background be from the subject and what lighting kit will you be using

lol, well right now I have a light from home depot that is super bright, a black sheet from walmart, and a room about 10X10. Do I have a chance?

yea i'm sure you have a chance keep the subject away from background so no light falling onit. maybe put some black paper around the light to give it the directional properties, then play in photoshop.

Actually since that pic is B&W ... u could do it with a 150 watt bulb fitted with sometime that would allow a spot light effect only shinging on the face. Take a meter reading of that portion of the lit face. Then go to manual and set the fstop and shutter u just metered for. It would help if the room was dark.

Good ideas, I guess the light I have is a bit too strong, so no matter where I point it, it lights the room. I also noticed, many of the light are from above and almost straight down so I guess that would help also.

A black velvet cloth background will suck up most of the spill light that you're getting.

Better make that "metal foil"!

This is a really cheap studio lighting set-up (pun intended). Shot this with ONE table lamp aimed at my mother at work (she works at the Swedish national radio). That's the only light source. So if you have a fairly dark bakground, you should be able to get a shot like this from one lamp, either it being a spotlight, flash, or a table lamp.

My mother lit by *one* lamp

If you want the background to be blacker with respect to the subject, then move the background back farther.

---Bob Gross---

To blacken the background, use a very small aperture. To get that spotlight effect, use a gizmo (not sure what the official word is for this) that will direct you light to a particular spot or area.

I my test here, I shot with a flash with the camera set to Manual mode, aperture f/22 and shutter speed 1/250. To direct the light to a certain area of the subject's face, I used a rolled up newspaper over the flash.

Here's the result. The placement of the lighting isn't all that great but what I was after was the result. This was just a less-than-five-minutes setup.

No photoshopping was required to get this effect. The background was blacked by the use of a very small aperture and a high shutter speed.

The second shot is what I got without the rolled up newpaper over the flash. A shot of the actual setup I used will be shown in the next post.

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And here's the simple setup I used.
.

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I think I need to get me one of those cord connectors.... seem very practical!

Thanks for that mini tutorial, Leo . . . so i guess the black background isn't necessary for this type of shot.

BTW, i thought you'd be bigger

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very cool, all great ideas, thanks a lot. This is what I got with my walmart sheet and cheap light. I shot it @ f2.8 1/80 800 iso. A bit soft but I'm not giving up. I pointed the big light at the wall as to tone it down a bit. oh, and a bit of photoshop'n

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Good example, Leo!