Simple yet creative maternity portraits might be my new jam.
Normally my go to for maternity portraits is to get mama, maybe her partner, and exsiting children into pretty light and move our way through a variety of poses and settings for maximum variety.
This session was a little different. Read on to learn what I did, what worked and what didnt in for this maternity portrait.
I need to get a creative shoot out of me; something that Ive been cooking up for months, but was never the right time to execute.
The shoot involved constructing a pool of sorts using pvc materials; something that I will be eager to use again as the weather gets warm. In fact I waited too long. The weather had turned cold; then we had a decent warm spell but not “pool weather”, meaning I had to get the temperature in the pool as warm as possible. Despite my efforts, bucketing pail after pail of straight hot water to this pool with cold water from the hose, the final result was NOT warm water.
My model, and very pregnant neighbour was not going to be comfortable in here, so I needed to do my best to make this quick (and as painless as possible). In order to be super quick, I modeled the poses I wanted to see OUTSIDE of the water, so that she could get in, get into the pose, have a few slight variations of the pose, and then GTFO.
I had situated the “pool” under my boys epic treefort. Scaffold would have been better, but this shoot was so impromtu and I was unable to set it up on my own.
So I climbed up the tree fort which really IS epic FYI – my husband ins a genius), grabbed a test shot and gave Ruth the green light.
Here is the final edit.
Creative Session Reflections
I love how this creative maternity portrait turned out despite not being exactly what I had planned. That’s the beauty of creative shoots! We get to try something new, play, and grow.
What I love the most is the rich tones, and the double exposure feel.
What I will do differently the next time I get to use the pool:
Find a way to run a hose from my house to the pool, to get the water more comfortable. IF I have to bucket it, plan ahead for multiple buckets, and a way to transport the buckets.
Reenforce the pool structure. It broke last minute under the pressure of the water beacuse the ground was just ever so uneven.
Steam the creases out of my backdrop.
Guide client to wear white. The rich red was so beautiful, but made it hard to tell she was wet, and in the water.
Im looking forward to using the pool again, for more creative maternity portraits, but I think this would be beautiful for mother and child photos (like a variation of a milk bath), fine art childrens photos or even a couples shoot might be cool.
I wont be using the pool for like SIX months though, so in the meantime I will be dreaming up more creative visions, as well as shooting some amazing families, and personal brands this fall!
Let me know in the comments if you would like to see a BTS of the pool assemby. I do have some random footage saved, and can put it together if ya want to see it!
If you want to schedule a shoot with me – click the link below.