Advice re: a new basement studio for black and white portraits

[joannalhudson]

I've had several friends ask if I could take pictures of their newborns in the popular black and white "tiny sleeping baby curled up in mom's hand with a black background" style, which I love but have never done before. Does anyone have experience doing this and could you give me some pointers pretty please?

I have a lot of space in my basement and want to create a makeshift studio. In addition to the black drape, can you recommend what kind of lighting I should set up?

Would appreciate ANY guidance. THANKS!!

[Shay Stephens]

Keep the light close to the subject and far away from the background to get truly black backgrounds instead of gray-ish. By keeping the light that way, the falloff from bright to dark will be big enough that light spill on the background won't overpower the blackness of it.

And a soft light would be complementary, so a softbox or umbrella or diffusion screen would be good. But you could experiment with hard light too (no softbox), especially if you want a contrasty B&W.