I used my macro lens to get close, and my gridded beauty dish left and behind the object at approximately a 300 degree (or ten o’clock) position to take this flower shot:
Flowers. Olympus E-520 with ZD 50mm/2 macro lens. Simock E300 studio strobe with gridded beauty dish. Aperture was f/3.2 with the flash output at 1/4 power.
As you can see, the white wall which is about 1m behind the flowers goes almost completely black – or at least dark brown – when using directed light like this. Want it completely black? Then use a black background, a non-reflective surface on which you put your object, and switch off the ambient room light (which was on here), or use a higher flash output and close the aperture down a bit more.
Thanks for reading.