I’ve shot this type of picture many times over the years, especially when I was using film, but usually with poor results. The primary reason for failures was not having fast enough film at the time and not being able to get enough detail in the dark areas. With film, the shadows either went to black too fast or if I overexposed to get detail in the shadows then the highlights blew out leaving no detail in bright areas.
Digital cameras have changed this, even without HDR because software can drag back a lot of detail from the underexposed shadows.
The reason I persisted shooting this type of image is because I like dark moody pictures.
This may not be the best example of its type but it’s enough for me. Being able to dial up the ISO and shoot handheld when stumbling on this type of scene is one of the reasons I went digital.
28mm, f2.8, 1/6sec, ISO 2500