Sam, from Boston #2

The obvious feature here that makes it work for me is that the model's angles mirror the angles of the curtains, and the tones of the two are both mid-range and complimentary. I'm also not normally a fan of the Karsh-style halos (given his expression, apparently neither was poor Mr. Churchill), but in this case for some reason it works for me. My only small quibbles are that the drapes sort of need to be ironed. And perhaps the wedge of sharp focus didn't run quite close enough to his lower left arm. Other than those minor nitpicks, I like it.

What lights did you use and how did you position them?

I too like the mimicry of body angle and curtain drape.

I have a Calumet Elite 2400 ws pack - I was running two heads off the pack - one in the 10" fresnel as my main, and the other in the grid reflector on the backdrop. That's it. The main light was camera left, a little higher than the subject's head, at around 60 degrees from the camera/subject axis. I noticed that about his hand too. I think he moved it back a little between composing and exposure.