I have been asked many times how I do my black background photos and I thought I should let you know my little secret.
To start with you have to plan your photo, what do you want to capture? Do you want to take a portrait or capture details? After that you have to figure out where you want it to be dark and where you want the light.
I move my studio to the stable. In these photos I am using a monolight with a softbox, only one light source to get one side of the horse light and the other one dark. The trick to get the background black is to use a monolight, set the settings on your camera and light so everything around will be underexposed except the object, in this case the horse. To get that really dark background you want your object to be as far as possible to any background or things around the object. I try to take my photos outside or in the riding area for example.
It can be little tricky to get this photo exactly as you want so you just have to practice practice practice and you will get the result you want.
If you are interested in learning this you can book an equestrian studio lesson with me.