How to take a picture with this lighting?

I was wondering how to take a picture with this kind of lighting? Just one area lit up with everything black and in the shadows. I have a Nikon D3000 by the way. But I'm quite an amateur, so any advice would help… Thanks!

Its probably in a pitch black room with a light source, maybe like a dim lamp aimed at the subject (alien). Photo editing could be involved too so it might not just be about how its shot.

This is a "low Key" type of shot. Use a dark/background in a darkened room and a single source of light to light the area you want to highlight. Keep your subject as far away from the background as is reasonable. You may have to play with exposure settings a little but this setup isn't too difficult.

You use off camera flash or a torch. If you use a torch you'll need room lights off & black card/cloth behind the subject to stop any light bouncing off the background.

If you use flash, you can just get rid of the background by shooting at what's called the max sync speed (around 1/200) - indoors at around f8 or so that'll kill the ambient light. You don't need to darken the room.

Snoot the flash or torch if necessary (a snoot is like a tube) - a piece of rolled up black paper would do, to make the light source tighter & spread out less.

Spot meter on the subject.

This one (similar lighting) I did with off camera flash, fired by radio triggers;

an off camera flash (YN560) & set of triggers (RF602) can be had for about £85 total. They would work fine with your D3000.

This will help you get an idea on where the light should be set up.

http://www.diyphotography.net/portrait-lighting-cheat-sheet

Black backgrounds can be achieved by having the distance between the subject and the background separated by a good distance. The strobe source on the alien mask provides for the lighting, but using the inverse square properties of light, you are able to shoot at a fast shutter speed an small aperture opening to get the right exposure on your subject and under expose everything else to the point it is black. The darker the room, the easier it is to achieve.

In a very very dark room and have a not so bright light pointed at the subject. If you have one, use a remote and drag the shutter speed out with the aperture open to let the light in, thus illuminating the subject and minimizing the shake. However, I have the D3000 too and I find that I have problems with noise in my pictures, and as far as I know that's unavoidable and can be fixed in a photo editing software. Also, if you ever see a picture on flickr that you don't know how it was taken, check the EXIF data, it tells you the settings they used if they have selected to let public people see it. It's a very useful tool.