Maternity Shoot

I recently revisited a client for her second maternity shoot.  It was interesting to shoot a second maternity session for someone at the same location and find ways to not just repeat what we did before.  You can see the last shoot here for comparison if you're interested.

We started with some high-key all white shots to achieve that angelic look that is so fitting for pregnant ladies.  A fun side note - the great fabric we used to cover her was just an unused window curtain they had lying around.

The first few shots were just lit with tons of light from behind which caused enough spill-over to light her front as well.  I changed some settings and added some concentrated light to add some drama and interest.

Same scheme as above except I turned the front flash off for more of a silhouette look.

The rest of the family manages to squeeze in for a few.

Blasting tons of light at everything is easy and can actually make very nice photos.  But, if you're willing to put some thought into it and take the time to get it right, light can become an amazing tool that gives the shooter much more control over the look of the final image.

For the previous maternity shoot, this client had pulled some images she had seen that she wanted to recreate.  That can be nice because it gives me some direction and an idea of what the client is thinking.  It can also be tough because now I feel like I have to meet some expectations and "match" what another shoot had done.  For this image, the client had found a shot that looked like it was taken in front of a giant window or set of sliding glass doors with big thick curtains drawn enough to just show the model in silhouette.  We had now windows like that at our disposal but I'm pretty happy that we were able to achieve the desired look by blasting light through a doorway.

As much as I like the high-key white images for maternity shoots, I always think these low-key black images add a nice flavor of their own.  It's a little moodier and does a better job at accentuating those pregnancy curves.

With focused light, one must choose the feature that is going to be the center of attention.  When it comes to maternity shots, I go back and forth between highlighting the mother's face and the belly.  For this shot, I chose to draw the viewer's attention to the belly.  Having the mother look down also helps draw your eye to the intended focal point.

This is an example of an image where I chose to highlight the mother's face instead of the belly.  While the baby is the main reason for everything, it's important to remember the importance of the mother's role in this process.

This is unique because I'm using two lights; one to highlight the belly and one to focus on the mother's face.

We'll finish out with set of the husband and wife together.

It's taken me so long to post these, this baby is already here and I'm scheduled to shoot the newborn photos this month.  Hopefully I'll get those posted sooner than the three months it took me to get to these!