“I do appreciate the special mood of the studio’s photography’s. I thought it could be interesting to reproduce this feeling in CG. Even if I haven’t practice this exercise before, I believe it has already been done by talented artists. Rather than taking inspiration from them I prefer to take advice of the photographers about how to set up the composition.”
http://www.cgarena.com/freestuff/tutorials/zbrush/manolia/manolia.html