Via Flickr:
View On Black !!!
this was just a quick and dirty attempt for a greeting card:
I had a ceramic elephant, a wooden heart and a black t-shirt, placed the ensemble on the ground and went at it with the 50mm/1.8D at f/2.2 and a 1/60s, using the camera flash. Exposure bias was at -0.7.
The result looked "cold" - the focus was right on the head but the heart was too much at level with it, so it came out sharp as well.
I desaturated everything but the heart, gave everything but the head a selective blur, adjusted contrast and added saturation back in.
Result was what I intended, i.e. a blurry look to the heart as something "not physical" and a nice and even black background.
Finalized with a black vignette so the whole subject came towards the eye from the center of the picture.