First photo shoot.tips?

A friend of mine has asked me to take photos of her little boy in May. He is 3. I've never done a photo shoot before, let alone with a squirmy toddler.

I have a Nikon d90 and will be mostly using my Nikon 50mm lens. I'll pull out my 70-300mm if I have to as well. We will be outside in a park in Downtown Portland, OR… Lots of people around.

Can anyone give me any tips? What to expect? How to deal with a child during a shoot? What sort of equipment will I need besides my camera and lenses? Also, are there any reasonably priced lenses (prime or zoom) that you would recommend for portraits? I'm thinking about another lens for this.

I'm completely new to shoots - which my friend knows - but I still want to be as professional and prepared as I can be. Any advice at all is greatly appreciated.

KISS (Keep It Simple n Silly)

Use what you have, if you over kill in a public setting you may draw attention to your self and find you may be asked to produce a license or asked to leave private property. Practice, go to the location with a stuffed animal during the time of day you plan on shooting. Practice see you natural light, how the crowds are, any other distractions, ect. The mother knows her child and should know what peaks his interest. Lets say he likes toy cars and yellow, buy a yellow toy car age appropriate for him, to use as a bribe. Kids don't like sun light in their eyes, nor a lot of wind in their faces. Think of clean photos and work your way to the messy, food and play shots last. Interaction with a colorful flower is always a winner.

Whatever you do, at all costs avoid shooting under direct sun. That is the WORSE of all possible times to shoot, with harsh shadows, horrible extreme contrast, and washed out colors. If you are not lucky enough to have an overcast day, then get in some shade. Set the white balance on your camera to shade or the photos will have a sickly blueish tone to them. Ideally, you should shoot in RAW format and use a proper white balance tool such as the Whibal, but that is another subject. In the shade, you are probably going to want / need some extra light on the face. You really need an external light off camera fired wirelessly, but a camera mounted flash can work if you dial down the EV amount by one to two factors. Even the pop up flash can give you some extra light and some catchlights in the eyes.

You can also use a reflector to bounce some light back onto the face.

I'm assuming you are not using the camera in Auto mode. At least I hope not. Use Aperture priority and set a lower fstop number to get some blur in the background. Be sure your shutter speed does not drop too low. You may have to adjust ISO to get the shutter speed up where it needs to be with an un-still 3 year old. Taking exposure readings from an external light meter or at least from a grey card would be far better.

Again, just DON'T be shooting out under direct sun. Nothing looks more awful and amateur. I hope your friend was wanting you to take the photos based on seeing quality work from you in the past, and not simply on the fact that you own a nice camera. Not trying to be rude, but owning a good camera only makes you a good camera owner, it does not make you a photographer. Try to get in plenty of practice at your location before the actual shoot. Take someone along to be a model so you can see what you need to do for light and backgrounds.

The D90 is a cropped sensor camera and thus your 50mm lens is excellent for this job. No need in spending money on any other lens.

Get a 5-in-1 reflector. You can use it to bounce some light in as fill (the gold surface provides a particularly warm tone). With all the covers removed it can be used as a diffusion panel or 'scrim', which is handy for diffusing hard light.

Get down to their level to shoot - if that means lying on the grass then do it! Make sure Mum has toys to keep him occupied and some snacks too in case he gets hungry.

You will have to be mobile and adaptable - if you are comfortable shooting manual on the fly then use that, otherwise I'd tend to shoot aperture priority for this kind of situation where things may happen fast & you don't want to miss the shot.

Your 50mm is, I assume, the f1.8 version? This will be fine - focus on the eyes and use shallow dof to isolate the subject from any background clutter. If you do have the b/g in focus. Make sure you don't have anything distracting in the b/g.