With a digital camera and Photoshop.

Lots of attention to contrast control.  Burning and
dodging of the sort you wouldn't attempt in a darkroom.

Notice the darkening around the beard - the shirt goes
to black.  The halo on the head and shirt yoke just isn't
right for natural lighting - not without a whole lot of
gobos, snoots and barn-doors.

To me it looks contrived, the modification is too
heavy handed for my taste.

For instant attention it is very good - striking.  
A beer advert maybe.

If you were going to attempt this in silver I would
start with Tri-X and a thin-ish negative - don't
overexpose or overdevelop.  Print on #4 - #5 paper.

Two lights and a reflector. Looks like two softboxes with the diffusers  
removed. A little dodge-&-burn as well. Too busy. No expression. No  
message. I give it a D+.

Photoshop, of course.  Per the creed of the digital folks out there -
straight out of Irving Berlin from way back when:

"Anything you can do I can do better, I can do anything better than you"

   At a guess, split-grade printing might come into it, which can allow you
to play with both clean grey tones and sharp blacks, regardless of what you
exposed your negative for (subject to the highlights being well-exposed of
course). That and toning which also improves perceived contrast by making
the shadows denser and a bit "colder".

   Or at least it would if this were wet photography, but since he
identifies the camera as a Nikon D70, therefore digital, it could be he's
just got a little settings file hidden away in his Photoshop called "make it
look like TriX"... Any amount of stock-specific curves can be simulated and
saved, and it looks like he might have experimented with adding a bit of
grain texture too -  look at the greys in the foreground bottle. There's
certainly a bit of neat lighting to lift the shapes, possibly a flashgun
tucked behind the sitter to produce that backlit highlight on the hair and
shoulders.

   Agreed, nice pic. Meanwhile, as someone who's trying to go medium format
on the very cheap, it just makes me want to go back in the darkroom and
carry on learning...

   Tony Clarke

IF this had been done in film, it was underexposed and overdeveloped.  The
highlights on the beard and hair are blocked solid, the shadows--e.g.,the
man's chest beneath his open shirt--are totally black.  These are the
standards for POOR print quality and yes, they can certainly be violated for
artistic effect--as they seem to have been here.  But I disagree with this
photographer's intent; the print looks far too harsh, and to me it give the
subject a somewhat sinister aura--which stands in stark contrast to his
expression of amiability.  The picture is far too contrasty for my
preference.  Striking in some respects, but I agree with an earlier comment:
it would make a good beer advertisement.

Can be done with film as well as pixels.  It's hard light, high contrast
printing.  I would probably use a green filter (Nikon X1) to make his skin
darker and add contrast to the blemishes.  The image is back lit and fill
light has been applied by flash or reflector.

Poomph, or poor taste...

If you drag it into Photoshop and hit the “blur more” filter, it will
begin to resemble a “silver” photo rather than a caricature of one. Work
from that image by hitting the “sharpen” filter repeatedly to replicate
the “darkroom” manipulation. Change the mode to “grayscale” from “RGB”
to determine the amount of “toning” that was applied.

Fortunately, no one will mistake the shopped image for a LF contact or
will they someday soon?

Without the distractions/detractions and with some DOF, it could be a
more revealing portrait. Apparently this has become the digital
interpretation of the old "soot and chalk" effect.

(Backlighting with fill on each side of the camera.)

This is technically not a very good image at all.

I apologize for being sidetracked by the digital example you used. If
you are interested in well done silver based photos, please take a look
through all of the Ralph Gibson archive on his website, check out his
books (you can get them through interlibrary loans) and look at real prints.

http://ralphgibson.com/archive/index.php?album=1

For most of his work, Gibson used Leica rangefinders with Tri-X
developed in Rodinal 1+25 for 11 min @ 68F to give sharp grain. Film
speed varied from 100 to 800+ (try 200 for "average" lighting). The
prints often were done on contrasty G3 or G4 paper, with appropriate
dodging and burning to compress the overall and selective scale to
the paper, which enhances the film's granularity and luminosity.

There really isn't a "pushbutton" equivalent in PShop.

Mike

High contrast, that's all.

Actually I must say I'm pretty flattered by this discussion. Unfortunatelly, none of you guessed right, you masters of the darkroom :-
This photograph is taken with a Nikon D70+ Af-D 50/1.4. No flash, no softbox, no reflectors, nothing (Oh, I just love the way somebody decided about the lights I've used. How sure you are, isn't it charming?). f2.8, 200 ASA
No burn&dodge, only 3 layers with different "gradient tool" applied. And some contrast and USM. That's it. 5 minutes, maybe less

Ah, and yes - a bottle of brandy, each! I was extremely drunk when I took this series of photographs, I didn't even notice the bottle..

I actually prefer these

http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=370609

http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=369963

http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=371482

Anyway, I don't like the attitude of most of the guys who replied before me. So you like to j.rk off in dark rooms, big deal - that doesn't make you a photographer

--
borissov

Scott, nope I wasn't, I found this forum looking in google for my name (I had a good reason to do that!). On the other hand, de gustibus non disputandum est, and I certainly do not consider the image to be "heavily processed"

Draco: thank you! If you (or somebody else) are interested in my "5 min conversion", I could write a mini-tutorial and post it here. Greetz

--
borissov