Emmanuel and Alicia - Maternity shoot

Maternity shoots are fun for me. Its a world that I do not know as I don't have kids, so I find I really have to push my creative self to come up with ideas. This is the second maternity shoot I have done and both times I had a similar workflow in that I sketched ideas out on a notepad to help guide my inspiration. I use those sketches as a baseline and then work with that and the couple to produce (what I think) are some fun shots.

On the tehnical side, these were done with natural light and a bit of fill flash for shadows. Not much processing done on these other than some lightroom adjustments, contrast work, slight saturation, levels and such.

Emmanuel and Alicia are friends of my friend Jennifer (aka Maternity shoot #1) who asked me to do some shots of them and their first expected child, a little boy due on November 23rd. They were really fun people to work with. Having people who are open to suggestions and also help in the creation process is what makes photography fun for me.

I met with them last Sunday at their house. We were lucky that the sky had cleared up and the sun came out so the windows were letting in a good amount of natural light. Here are some of my favorite images from the shoot.

Having a baby is about the couple as well


We got Emmanuel going with some Zoolander-esk facial stretches




I love the "whats going on in there" expression


I'm usually not one to put corny stuff in my shots, but I actually do like the heart hands. Someone shoot me if I break out a ribbon or spell the kid's name in blocks


Slightly different angle on heart hands


One of my faves


They say expecting moms and radiant...judge for yourself





Thanks for checking out the shots! Feel free to leave a comment.
And thanks to Emmanuel and Alicia for letting my photograph this important part of their life, best of luck guys.

Maternity shoot

I dedicated 2010 to trying to grown and practice more portrait photography. I was excited when my friend Jennifer asked me to do some natural style maternity shots. I met Jennifer a few years ago while taking a photography course and got a chance to meet her husband Stefano during the shoot. They were well prepared for the shoot as they were nicely coordinated in black shirts and jeans. Solid colours are key when doing portraits, specially classy portraits where you want viewers to focus on the models and not the lines and shapes in their clothes.
I went their place earlier this week and we ended up having about 50 mins of shooting time. These were taken mostly in their living room where they had a nice big window that was shining some nice light, which is a must when trying to go for natural, "zen" style shots.

What did I learn? While I like to allow people to pose themselves with only slight direction from me (keeps things natural and organic), I still need to pay more attention to the small details. Plan some, but not too much. I had looked through some maternity shots online to get my creative mind going. The morning of the shoot I just scribbled 6-7 ideas down on a piece of paper, but once you get started, you just move from one thing to another based on the location, the light and the inspiration that hits you (or the models) at the time.

So here are my fave shots...