Beauty is my secret pleasure. I’ve had a long career as a professional photographer, and when I look back at why I became a photographer, one of the reasons—not the only one—is I wanted a career in which I would be surrounded by women. This may sound crazy, but in the era when a person that went into music to become a rockstar in order to be surrounded by women, photography was the next best thing. Not to mention, I have no musical talent.

I started by doing headshots. One day I got a call from a woman who needed a portrait. She said she was coming with a friend who did hair and makeup. This was my first assignment that I had this type of support, and it opened up the world to me. From then on, I knew that to get great beauty shots, I needed professional hair and makeup. This carried through to my work with opera personalities and with actors and actresses doing lifestyle photography.

A makeup artist is the first person that has contact with your subjects. I found having a makeup artist with a good personality helps relax the model. When you set the atmosphere so the model feels they are in a place where they’ve been taken care of, it sets your shoot up for success.

There are many things that you need to handle next. The most important is wardrobe. Wardrobe makes or breaks a shoot. In most cases, the model brings wardrobe. This is tricky. Speaking with the model beforehand, letting them know what you were looking for, and seeing what they have is something you must do. When you are doing advertising or editorial, you have a stylist that brings the wardrobe. You work with the stylist going over the details of the shoot and they speak with the model, they see what they have, and then they shop for the rest.

If you handle all of the above, you then know that your image will be successful even before you start shooting. Working with the model is when the magic happens. Over time, you develop a technique that you keep refining with each project.