How to shoot dramatic portraits
The one thing you have to think about with making the dramatic image is from looking from places of inspiration first. Make a mood board of all the things that only emulate and arouse an emotion. Something striking and gives off a energy of mystery.
A perfect tool to use to make a mood board is millanote If you have a pinterest account this works well too but from my experience its much more collaborative to use millanote.
Lighting is obviously very important in making dramatic images. Some lighting you can create shapes etc or just have a simple set up. When it comes to lighting try to think taking away just enough light to make the viewer wonder. Great books that can show you the basics of lighting in dramatic setting would be. "The Dramatic Portrait: The Art of Crafting Light and Shadow" by Chris knight. If you don't got the $ use your imagination and use flashlights lighting a subject specifically using 2 different lights to see what effect you like best. Most easiest set up is a light above head a full opacity then a fill light in front or the side of your subject at maybe 35% opacity.
Here's a set up diagram to get an idea of what you can do.
Here are some other examples of making dramatic lighting.
Thanks for reading.