I sometimes get asked if I 'always' have an erection, because almost all of my photos show me thus equipped. The literal answer is of course no; that would be priapism and painful.

However, I do make an effort to be nicely hard when posing. I try to make photos with an erotic kick, not artistic nudes. I want to express the happy fun associated with being confident with your sexuality. There are two sides to that: you need to be explicit and playful. Although it is possible to communicate male eroticism by posture and look, it's much easier and more direct to show a hard cock. That cock should not be the sole focus, though. There's nothing particularly playful in a crotch shot. I think many people make them because they are in the process of coming to terms with their sexuality not being entirely private, not because they really want to communicate anything.

To get a playful photo, some context and environment is essential, and you need to relate to it in some way. 'Naked guy with hard-on standing in front of a brick wall' is not going to cut it. Some 'story' needs to be suggested. Perhaps you are on a hike in a wild country. Perhaps you are doing a naked dare in a public location. Perhaps a 'regular' non-nude visit to a location spontaneously became erotically exciting. Or perhaps the landscape is impressive and harmonizes (or contrasts) with erotic nudity. Anything goes, as long as there is something for the viewer to think or feel.

Precisely because of this visual context it is extra important to clearly show the erection. Otherwise there is an increased risk of the image becoming a non-erotic nude.

Here is an illustration of the above, taken from a very old photo set. The technical quality is not great, but sufficient here.

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On the left: no context, frontal pose, no erection. On the right: view of a room with books, a globe etc., leaning pose, level hard-on. Notice how in the pic on the right there is an interesting contrast between the rather intellectual look of the room and the mischievous erotic pose. Without erection this would be lost.