In ball sports, follow the ball.

I’ve shot soccer, volleyball, basketball, wrestling, swim, and water polo at various points and there’s not really a one-size-fits-all answer, but shutter priority is your friend. In indoor lighting you can go full manual, but it becomes of a game of balancing your aperture against your shutter to get correctly exposed images.

Tell them no, you’re booked solid and don’t have time this year for freebies.

Also, your partner should back you up; it’s their family demanding the free stuff.

You should sit, with the baby in your lap

Soft lighting, and enough of it that you don’t need a flash; babies and little kids sometimes get really upset by flashes. Also, have the parents bring some of their favorite toys they can use as a distraction.

I use a 18-300mm for everything outside a studio setting; I chose it specifically to cut down on the amount of crap I have to shlep around.

I clicked on your profile; what the actual fuck?!

How did you find her anyway? Did she show you any kind of portfolio?

For light: pick a subject like a statue or a building, and take pictures at different times of day.

For composition: taking fine arts classes, especially design. I feel like most photography classes only touch on really basic design concepts behind the “what” of making a composition work without going into the detail of “why”.

I shamelessly exploit my cute cat and put his antics on Reels to draw in followers; sometimes they end up interacting with my photos