Doing maternity photos was something that I never would have seen myself doing when I first got involved with photography. I certainly didn't have anything against them. I just didn't think it was something that I would able to do with the same creativity that I had done on some of my other shoots. But honestly, the real reason was I was just never approached with the opportunity. That was until Adaeze contacted me regarding her pregnancy.
I never knew who Adaeze even was before she reached out to me. She was a friend of a friend and she quickly enlightened me to the fact that she was also a photographer. That made me a little nervous. Not only would I be doing the type of photo shoot I had never done before but my subject was a fellow photog. Would she be over critical since she was in the same business? Would she scrutinize my concepts if they weren't in line with how she would shoot if she were behind the camera? Or maybe I was just over-thinking the entire thing.
Before going into the shoot, I figured it would be in my best interest to do a little research on some
maternity photos. What angles worked and didn't work? What were the super cheesy poses that I wanted to avoid? What looks were done so much that they were now trite? You would be surprised how many horrible maternity pictures are out there. It was quite easy for me to choose the direction I wanted to go to assure that my photos would not also fall in that category.
Soon as I met Adaeze and her family I immediately felt at ease. All three of them (her, her husband Rashard and their son) were extremely photogenic. If there was a Family magazine (and there probably is that I just don't know about) then they looked like they could have fallen off the cover. All three of them were just as joyful and pleasant as they could be. I didn't have to worry about trying to make them feel comfortable in front of the lens because they had already more than succeeded with doing that themselves.
I had formulated some ideas of what different poses I wanted to try; however, more came to me on the fly while we were there in the studio. It was more than just the positioning that worked in my favor. It was changing up the lighting to complement the different poses so that I was able to get achieve just the right looks. Especially when I went to the one-light set up with the only light being the gridded stripbox. The shots from that light set-up were hands down some of my favorites from that session.
I didn't have to wait until I started editing to see which ones would be the best captures. I could tell right then and there just looking in-camera which ones those would be. And there were several. So many that I was tempted to break my own rule and post more than just a few as a photo album. As hard as it was, that was one rule I still couldn't break. I can't post too much of my work from one session. Can't be giving away all of my best secrets to the competition.
The reason I went with this collage format is it captured every aspect of the family. We have Adaeze in the forefront who was basically the entire reason for the shoot. That's why her photo was purposely the biggest. Then the entire family together where you can clearly see she's pregnant, but the focus is shifted to the family as a unit. Then the one of mother and father together. The love being expressed in their faces and body language could not have been more genuine.
All in all, I would say that I did pretty dang good for this to be my first maternity shoot ever. Heck, it was just a great shoot overall no matter what the theme was. But as far as maternity shoots go, this one would serve as a springboard that I didn't even see coming. More folks started approaching me for these type of shoots once these photos dropped. I wasn't mad at all. Turns out I was pretty good at the maternity captures too. It's amazing what you can discover when you really test your skills.
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