Great photographs: it's really difficult to make a good photo of a black subject against a black background. The first three images in the photo essay---in particular the third---show that, with skill, it can be done.
Lighting is just as important, of course, but you can achieve some interesting effects just by giving light more time to enter a physically stable camera.
EDIT: I changed my mind. If you look at the photos carefully, you can see most of the effect is from a fill light behind the camera. If that light source doesn't exist, no amount of holding the shutter open will make it seem like it does.
Yeah, I was going to say what's really going on here is the photographer has a nice big soft box behind the camera (or maybe even just a diffuser on an on-camera flash). That way all of the flat surfaces facing the camera show pleasant highlights and then the dark areas define the edges of those.
A flash (any flash, even your camera’s built in one if it has manual power settings) and a few hours doing the first articles on Strobist will gove you the skills you need to light the pics in this article.