How to make similar images to this

Hey guys. I have kind of a specific request to ask.

There's a youtube channel that I follow whose thumbnails are something I quite like and I wanted to be able to make something similar in photoshop. This was actually harder than I thought as there seem to be a lot of factors that play a part such as resolution, lighting, good backgrounds etc.

Here are some samples of the thumbnails.

I understand this is a pretty specific request but if anyone could give me some direction on how to go about making something like this or even just some general pointers, I'd be super grateful. The channels name is hip hop universe if you need more reference photos.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!