Young child portrait shots - help requested

I tried to guess the most appropriate sub-forum for my question and decided on this one...

I have been asked to do a portfolio shoot for a 3-year old (YO ) and given I could really use the money right now*, I am offering a discount rate, due to my inexperience with this age, but think I could do a decent job at it so am planing on taking the offer. But I could use some advice if someone has some.

I am used to shooting adult models and am fairly good at filling their needs and have also done shoots with a 7 and 10 year old for a class project a couple years back as well as my 1 YO neice (although I don't think those count )

I want to make sure I get the right poses and looks for a 3-year old girl for her portfolio. The purpose of the portfolio is to get her (via her mother obviously ) modeling gigs for clothing lines and related modeling jobs. So she needs the right looks to attact those offers and the mother wants to be able to send in prints to various agencies.

I presume "cute" and "adorable" are the key word for the looks I should be going for a 3-year old, as opposed to say an 18+ model which would be sex appeal and beauty.

I am also currently presuming no makeup for a 3YO- so if that is wrong, please tell me.

What I could use help on is suggestions as to appropriate poses and outfits for that age bracket and any other help in handling a model that young and getting the shots needed. I normally go for 2 hours minimum, but my very limited experience working with models under 13 is two hours maximum may be too much.

Last bit of trivia: I shoot with a 1DsMkII and have a 85/1.2, 50/1.4, 16-35/2.8, 28-70/2.8 and 70-200/2.8 IS and a 24 TS/E for lenses to play with (that I remotely think appropriate for this shoot ). And a decent set of studio lights (AB's if you must know) although currently my plan is 1 hour at local park and 1 hour in studio so there is some non-camera time for the 3YO.

Advice and suggestions requested please...

Final bit of trivia: She was recommended by one of the adult models I shoot and I need the money to pay for the MkIII I have on order after taking some monetary hits this summer due to family emergencies.

I shot my son at that age and it wasn't bad, but I knew him and he knew me. If you can establish a level of rapport with the child, it helps a lot. I am guessing that 2 hours with a 3 YO for a shoot is going to be too much, but it does depend on the child.

For factors, "cute" and "adorable" are biggies. "Fun" could be another, like the unbridled joy a child can have over a discovery or the like.

I don't do much in the portrait department, aside from my own kids, so my info is limited about makeup and the like. I would think (hope) that they mom will be bringing the clothing for the shoot that she feels would be appropriate.

Good luck!

Actually the mom was asking advice on what clothing she should bring, thinking I would be the expert on kids :O

Well, since we've had a child, we've been getting all kinds of magazines and catalogs we didn't subscribe to, and I suspect the mother in question gets them too, targeted to parents of three-year-olds. I would look through them to see what the market is like.

Cute, adorable, and fun might be looks to go for, but I bet there's also a demand for three-year-olds having tantrums, making messes, and other things that three-year-olds do, and that are the subject of articles in said magazines, all of which are heavily illustrated and filled with advertising (there was recently an all-Shreck issue of _Parenting_, where even the cover was advertising).

People who do stock photography often say that the stuff that sells is people having a conversation in an office or walking through an airport, as opposed to stunning photographs of nature. I suspect there is analogy there in commercial child modeling.

David,
I think your advice is the best I have seen in terms of what I needed to help me. I think it also made me think about how I handle my adult model portfolios, Thanks.

My advice would be to allow the child to look like a child, but that comes from being a mother, and not at all influenced by any knowledge whatsoever other that.