Richard Kern's Erotic Photog Guide -- Details, Details, Details

MIND THE DETAILS

Get the release form. "If you're talking about shooting naked girls, unless you're a guy who's doing it for kicks, first thing you've got to get is a really complete model release. It covers you against everything in the world. [The one I use] I got from sex magazines. They have to have the most thorough releases."

Don't be cheap. "Pay the models! Give them $50 an hour, $75 bucks for a couple hours, whatever you can afford. That combined with a model release will in 10 years -- if you get lucky and she becomes famous -- will allow you to sell your photos for a ton of money. There's also less of a chance the model will look back and say, 'Oh, I feel cheated.' "

Go digital. "I've been shooting pretty much all digital for a while. I just bought a Canon Mark III DS. It's pretty high resolution. You can't go wrong with it. I can blow it up as big as I want."

Shooting older women "Natural light is always great. Natural light makes everybody look good and a little blurry, and softens up everything ... Low light digital is great."

What if a model wants her pictures back? "Generally if someone says, 'Take this down; take it off your Web site. Can I have that stuff back?', it's generally better to go ahead and do it. But keep a copy for yourself."

Be up front. "I've had models that were thinking about modeling and then they start getting weird about the release and I say, 'Look, really think about it, if you've got somebody you don't want to see these photos, or if you feel remotely weird about it, I would just not do it.' Because the stuff will get out. It gets all over the place, and in 10 years who knows where it's going to be."

A final note "If you're doing it for fun, then every rule goes out the window. If you get in that situation where the model's doing it for fun, you're doing it for fun, you're just having some kicks ... do whatever you feel like. Enjoy yourself."