Maternity Shoot

**D L** · 5th March 2016, 03:34 AM

I have never done a maternity shoot before. I had never thought about a maternity shoot before.
This shoot was originally not mine. My wife and her friend (the subject) were going to do this on their own. Then I was invited as an assistant. Then my wife said, how about we take turns shooting different concepts and each of us can assist the other.

So the day before, I started looking at maternity photos online.

As we arrived at the beach, 40 mins later than we wanted to (babysitter issues), my wife said, "I think you should just do all the shooting". Gulp

I tended to shoot very wide with the intention of cropping in post. One tip I picked up in my research was that maternity shots can be challenging to crop. Also that side and backlighting tended to work well.

Excuses over, here are some of the shots. I cropped to 4x5 ratio as there was a pre-purchased 8x10 frame to fill.

Any C&C on concept (or lack of), composition, posing, use of light. post processing etc will be greatly appreciated.

#1

1/200, f/,. ISO 100
Silhouettes are popular in the maternity photography world. I'm not really sure about it. If I make her a total silhouette, you can't tell it's her.

#2

1/160, f/8 ISO 100, -0.7 TTL Fill Flash on TTL cord
This one didn't work for me as a 4x5 so is 3x2

#3

1/100, f/7.1, ISO 400, -0.7 TTL Fill Flash on TTL cord

#4

1/50, f/5.6, ISO 800

#5

1/30, f/5, ISO 800

**Manfred M** · 5th March 2016, 05:25 AM

I think you were "set up" by your wife in getting to shoot all of the images.

Let me try to stick with some generic comments.

The first three images look like they were shot with fill flash, and the last two were not. I assume you were using on-camera flash. Is this correct?

The first thing that strikes me about the shots is the uncontrolled hair. Tough to handle in a windy place like a beach, but they tend to add an unwelcome distraction into the shots. I'm not sure what to suggest here.

The suggestion regarding back lighting and side lighting in maternity shots is there to accentuate the baby bump. I'm not convinced that this is necessarily the best advice and those techniques tend to have become a bit too cliche.

Now for some specifics"

Image 1 - I think this shot would have worked better as a pure silhouette. A pure full profile shot would have clearly shown who the subject is, but you clearly need to define the features of the subjects head at 90 degrees; the chin, nose and forehead do define who this is to anyone who knows her. Being off 90 degrees doesn't work all that well.

Image 2 - This is a stronger shot, but your subject is positioned too far to the right of the frame. I suspect you cropped the way you did to include the setting sun in the shot, but this forced you into a bit of an awkward crop.

Image 3 - Your fill flash is too "hot" and should have been turned back at least a stop to balance the light in the image. If you have your subject look straight ahead so that the iris is more or less centred in the the socket, means you don't get quite as much of the whites of her eyes in and that generally leads to a better image.

You were a tad to low in the shot as well. Had you shot from a bit higher, you would have kept the land and sky in the background out of the image and that would have resulted in a stronger composition. As it is, that adds a distracting element to the background.

Image 4 - I'd crop out the whole right side as well as a bit off the top. The sand is all full of foot prints that are distracting, the spit of land does not fit and is distracting as well and the subject is too small in the frame. Flip your crop by 90 degrees and go vertical format / portrait format and I think you will find you have a stronger composition.

A touch of fill light would have helped this image.

Image 6 - A bit of fill light would have helped this shot. I have the same comment about the positioning of the eyes as in #3. I think you will find that if you crop out that bit of sky at the top, you will have a stronger image.

**D L** · 5th March 2016, 07:00 AM

Manfred, thanks for all the feedback.

I'll work on the eye positioning problem next portrait shoot. I need to be more conscious of the direction of the subjects head and my positioning.

A couple more for the memory for next shoot are:
1. Sunset shoot = get subjects feet wet more often (waves permitting). This gets them in the smooth, clean sand.
2. Maternity shoot. Decide for each frame, if the hand furthest from the camera is going to be in the picture or not. So many shots had just fingertips, or a thumb, appearing from nowhere.