Each Tuesday I try to offer some trick for making your next model shoot easier and maybe even fun while creating great portraits at the same time. In a previous post, I wrote, “If you’re wondering how someone who was originally an architectural and product photographer came to wander down this path, it will be the subject of a future post.” This is that post.

The featured infrared image was made in Arvada, Colorado on the grounds of the Arvada Center for the Performing Arts, a multi-use cultural facility that opened in 1976 and is operated by the City of Arvada.

All that’s really needed to produce professional quality glamour images is a camera with interchangeable lenses, a few simple photographic accessories and models willing to pose for you.

I think communicating with your subject is the most important aspect of making portraits. That process may start with the initial contact and move onto verbal communication during the session but to produce the best possible photographs, I believe you need to start before a subject arrives at the shoot.

Several years ago, I attended a hot rod show planning to make some photographs. Sometime during that day I scratched the front element of my Canon EF 10-22mm EF-S lens. This wasn’t the first time I’ve done something stupid but hope it will be the last. Here are a few tips from the trenches that will save you the cost of an expensive repair or, worse yet, replacement of one of your favorite lenses