Nowadays, it is a trend to photoshoot the mother’s maternity period. And also, it is a beautiful way to capture the parent’s excitement for their baby’s arrival. Being a photographer it should be your main goal to achieve the expressions of beauty and love with attention and creativity. Below are some tips that you should follow to have an excellent maternity photography session.
Always Consider the Mother’s safety
Being a photographer, it should be your first and the highest priority to considering the mother’s protection for any maternity photo session. It is essential to consider the mother’s health and safety first while choosing a location or exploring other shoot options.
Always ensure that there are no health issues before the shoot, and she is hydrated and cared during the photo shoot. Try the poses that are comfortable and doesn’t require any extra movement, because you don’t want the mom and the baby at risk.
Understand your client’s thoughts before selecting a location
Your clients may already have a location or ideas in mind when they come to see you. If they have a suitable place that they visit occasionally, you can select that. Otherwise, you can also suggest some better location.
You should complete a wall art vision exercise to help determine a location for your shoot. In this exercise, you can ask your clients to decide and imagine one image that they are willing to buy and want to hang on the wall inside their house. This will help them to focus on their imagination for the photos and will give you a kick start for planning the shoot.
Select an appropriate wardrobe
Once you have selected the location, you will need to consider the client’s wardrobe.
The wardrobe should match the style and location of the shoot. If your selected location is more on the formal side with good architecture, then your client’s must wear formal outfits and dress for the occasion.
If the location is more casual like a beach, or a park, then you should suggest your clients wear a casual dress which they might normally wear in those surroundings. You can also recommend appropriate apparel that will suit the environment. But, this is all based upon the client’s preference, but you also suggest some things based on the location.
Decide on a lighting style
You will need to decide on a perfect lighting style and stick to it for an excellent photo session. Refer to your style and technique, if the parents do not have any particular preference, it means you can either use natural light or a flashlight.
Most of the location-based maternity photo sessions end up using natural light for that airy and fashionable bright look. The last hour or the sunset, which is referred to as the golden hour, is the perfect time to schedule sessions like engagement and other portrait sessions.
Using flash in your images provides you with several opportunities. You can easily extend the time of your shooting hours when shooting using flash. By using flash, you can add an editorial and dramatic look to your images, which will help your images to stand out from the other majority maternity sessions found on the internet.
Posing and Angles
Once you figure out everything else, now it’s time to focus on the posing and taking pictures. Below are some poses and angles for mothers to have a fantastic photo session:
Hands-on the belly
It is very natural for a mother to touch the bump, and when it comes to photography, it is useful to draw attention to her stomach and to give her an area to place those hands. You can also suggest some poses for the man (the daddy) such as hands in the pockets, or touching her hair.
Up High
Height is an effective way to showcase your subject and a bigger belly. In this pose, you can stand on something or bring a stool to your photo session. You can also get creative like, have your client’s lie on a blanket or quilt so that you can shoot from above. Capturing from a height can minimize those parts of the body that have gotten bigger during the period of pregnancy.
Using Props and Accessories
These photography sessions are an elegant way to capture the couple’s excitement to meet their baby soon. You can also include some accessories and props like toys, miniatures, etc. to make the best out of the images. Make sure you pose them accurately so that you can focus on the prop and both of them.
Conclusion
In this article, we discussed the pro tips for maternity photography. You can follow the steps mentioned above to have an excellent maternity photography session. People living in or around Sydney can find maternity photography Sydney with fantastic photographers especially trained for these photo sessions.