Hello Roman, Thank you for your response!
Actually it's a bit of both. In the studio I use a beauty dish, quite close to the model to create the high contrast, I underexpose to have control over the highlights and in post processing I use curves to create the deep blacks and to flatten the mid tones and highlights. And there's a slight colourcast added to the black and white photo.
The difficulty lies in visualising the final result during the shoot, contrast wise. Our eyes compensate so much!