diff --git a/AUTHORS.rst b/AUTHORS.rst
index 907687d4de..c915e8513d 100644
--- a/AUTHORS.rst
+++ b/AUTHORS.rst
@@ -187,3 +187,4 @@ Patches and Suggestions
 - Nehal J Wani (`@nehaljwani <https://github.com/nehaljwani>`_)
 - Demetrios Bairaktaris (`@DemetriosBairaktaris <https://github.com/demetriosbairaktaris>`_)
 - Darren Dormer (`@ddormer <https://github.com/ddormer>`_)
+- Rajiv Mayani (`@mayani <https://github.com/mayani>`_)
diff --git a/requests/models.py b/requests/models.py
index ce4e284e64..37e7f9a25c 100644
--- a/requests/models.py
+++ b/requests/models.py
@@ -155,8 +155,12 @@ def _encode_files(files, data):
 
             if isinstance(fp, (str, bytes, bytearray)):
                 fdata = fp
-            else:
+            elif hasattr(fp, 'read'):
                 fdata = fp.read()
+            elif fp is None:
+                continue
+            else:
+                fdata = fp
 
             rf = RequestField(name=k, data=fdata, filename=fn, headers=fh)
             rf.make_multipart(content_type=ft)
diff --git a/tests/test_requests.py b/tests/test_requests.py
index 0c7988dca3..0106713d50 100644
--- a/tests/test_requests.py
+++ b/tests/test_requests.py
@@ -676,6 +676,14 @@ def test_POSTBIN_GET_POST_FILES(self, httpbin):
         with pytest.raises(ValueError):
             requests.post(url, files=['bad file data'])
 
+    def test_invalid_files_input(self, httpbin):
+
+        url = httpbin('post')
+        post = requests.post(url,
+                             files={"random-file-1": None, "random-file-2": 1})
+        assert b'name="random-file-1"' not in post.request.body
+        assert b'name="random-file-2"' in post.request.body
+
     def test_POSTBIN_SEEKED_OBJECT_WITH_NO_ITER(self, httpbin):
 
         class TestStream(object):