I noticed that I haven’t done a photography focused blog in quite some time so I figured since I had a maternity shoot scheduled over the past weekend, why not write about it and share some tidbits about my approach to this kind of photography?
This shoot was scheduled towards sunset because as the sun sets, the light gets much softer and less harsh. The same goes for sunrise but not many people are willing to wake up and do a photoshoot that early in the morning. A lot can be done in the middle of the day but if you have the choice, always choose later in the day. In order of preference: golden hours, sunset, blue hour. The only downside to this approach is that you will have a limited amount of time to get the shoot done. It’s only going to get darker and darker. That in turn means that the ISO is probably going to get higher and that’s not optimal. If you want to give yourself some extra time, go a bit before golden hour and work through the previously mentioned preferred times.
As far as location, we decided on a local park with lots of tall grass, a variety of trees and some interesting buildings. Locations like this can be difficult because it can be similar to a very mild hike. There’s hills to climb and fields to walk through and these are things that some pregnant women are not going to want to deal with. Luckily my client believed in my vision and played along.
Most of the compositions that I had planned for this shoot involved couple photos but I didn’t find out until getting on location that the father didn’t want to participate. This kind of made things difficult. I had to adjust and put all of my focus on the mother.
In terms of gear, I kept it super simple. One body. One lens. I used my go to, the Sony A7RIII and Sony 24-70mm f/2.8 GM. The A7RIII is such an enjoyable photography camera, especially with the recent firmware update. Sony recently released the 3.0 firmware update for this camera which essentially turbocharges the focusing system. Most useful for this shoot was the real-time Eye AF functions. This allows for more accurate eye autofocus and a better autofocus algorithm in general. With some of my compositions, I had to be far away from the subject to get the look that I was going for at 70mm. The updated autofocus system was accurate and able to grab focus at a distance.
I would have to say that my approach to photography has been changing a lot over the past year. I now seek very specific lighting. I’m always looking for those bright highlights and darker shadows. This was pretty easy to find at this location because there were lots of tall trees. As the sun sets, light got filtered through the trees which casted a lot of unique shadows. I used this towards my advantage and I often positioned the subject in the spotlight while being surrounded by darkness. After some editing, this approached provided for some very moody images. With some images, it was like the sunlight just kissed the subject in all the right ways, highlighting her face, stomach and curves. This makes the subject and her pregnancy stand out while, in a way, faded out the environment. It was as if she was in a world of her own.
This was a fun photoshoot. I got to try a few different things out in terms of photography techniques and the client is happy with the results. At the end of the day, if you have a job and are shooting for someone else, that’s all that matters.
I hope this type of blog provides you with some form of value. I’ll probably include more content like this on this website in the near future as I get into the groove of things and figure out how I can make them meaningful for those reading. If there are certain things that you’d like to know, ask in the comment section below!
Summer and good weather is approaching so take the opportunity to go out and shoot!
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