Baby Countdown!

We finally found some time to take some nice maternity shots with real lighting, etc. We love the shots by the beach but Karen knew she wanted some great black and white images. Of course, we forgot to get me in a few shots until we had switched backgrounds but it worked out well.

I like mixing low-key (dark background, dark clothes, emphasis on shadows, etc.) and high-key (bright background, white/light clothes, etc.) to get two very different looks.

Some nice shots of Karen alone. These are shot with the main light in an umbrella off to her side. Another flash is aimed at a reflector on her right side to act as fill and a final flash is up high and behind her to act as a hair light. The "fill" and "hair" lights help separate her from the background.

Now we switch to some high-key shots. This lighting scheme produces a much brighter and lighter feeling image. I might do a "behind-the-scenes" post about this setup later but the background is a white sheet hanging from a frame I built. A flash is fired into the sheet from behind so as to make it look pure white. Some light from the background spills on to Karen, but a light in an umbrella adds the main light on her.

And we remembered to stick me in a few. I still hadn't changed from work (I just took off my shirt) but the white undershirt and light pants worked out great.

We hope you enjoyed some of the latest pics of Karen! I've had a few requests to show some more images from this session so I will be posting them soon.