Maternity Shots for the Wine-In-A-Box Crowd.

Posted by Sarah in Babies Peeping Out, Photographs, Underbelly

1 comments

If you can afford to go out and hire a ridiculous-wonderful-amazing photographer to take a zillion pictures of you and your hubby in various maternity poses, including the ubiquitous and always present fingers making a heart on mom's belly, then this post is not for you.

If however, you have expensive tastes, no money in your wallet, mediocre at best skills or equipment and you're pregnancy photos amount to a handful of flash filled snapshots of you standing in your kitchen, hiding the food you're eating and wearing your husband's huge t-shirt. Well...this post is for you.

Did you know that being one of those poor kitchen standing women got me interested in photography in the first place? It was...and while I'm still what you would call "fledgling"- I've figured out a couple things about taking your own maternity shots. So here are my top self-pregnancy portrait ideas.

The Photography:

1. Find the Timer on your camera. My point and shoot has several timer options- the ten second one works best. My big Canon is a little more tricky because it doesn't stand up by itself, and needs the tripod. Most of my pregnancy, I used the point and shoot because of how easy it was. One of the few times I really value that. But anyways...finding and using the self-timer let's you take a hundred pictures until you look good without bothering your husband with things like "no...you can see a slight double chin, try again." or "No my belly looks funky, I think the baby kicked, try again."

2. Find Nice Light. Can't stress this enough. Turn off the flash (please for the sake of all things great, turn off the flash). And look around your house for nice, natural light.
The house I lived in for Baby M's pregnancy had nice light in front of windows and out on the back porch. The house we live in now has nice light in front of the open front door, on the outside porch and occasionally in the kitchen. You don't want direct, harsh sunlight- but something diffused and bright.

3. Find A Nice Background. Try and find a clean background. You want something that puts you and the bump on display- not whether or not you cleaned your bathroom mirror recently (ehem, you ladies who take belly pictures with your cell phone standing in front of the mirror- you can do better!)

4. Find a Prop. For said timer set camera. Because I don't usually just happen to have a piece of furniture hanging out next to great light. Drag a chair over, stick a stool on top, balance your camera on top and pray that it doesn't fall. Almost every single one of my maternity shots with Baby M come from a precariously balanced camera. A girl's got to do, what a girl's got to do.

5. Shoot. Shoot. Shoot. No that's not what you say when you see how big your hips have gotten. That's what you need to do to get a picture where you look good. I'm serious, camera angles are MEAN. So keep moving and try a bunch of different things- look at what you've shot and figure out how to move to look better. The best stance I've found for simultaneously looking slim and showing off the bump is: stand to the side, rotate your leg closest to the camera out so your foot is pointed to the camera. Keep your hips straight and turn your upper body towards the camera. Don't be afraid if you take like 600 pictures- you can delete, and no one has to know! I promise, I won't tell.

6. If Possible, Get A Hand. I asked J to take some photos when we would traditionally hire a photographer (about 30 weeks- especially since I gave birth at 36 weeks). I tried not to be picky and figured he could shoot whatever and we'll see what happens. I was pleased. Of course- I couldn't ask him to take a million until I looked good-- and he got me eating a donut. But you know...that's pregnancy.

Or even ask a relative. I just did some maternity photos for my sister. I LOVE doing this kind of stuff for people.

7. Experiment. If it's just you, and the camera (and maybe a toddler or two running around), you've got nothing to lose. Try anything you want, browse photography sites for posing or background ideas.

Chronicling Ideas:

You can decide whether you want monthly or weekly photos. As the oldest of seven, I was always hugely fascinated with how you went from normal sized person to belly-out-to-here in nine months so I'm drawn to the weekly photos. Plus weekly ones keep the pregnancy rolling to a certain extent.

There are tons of creative options in how to document. With Baby M, I just added a photo to facebook and my mommy boards for every week- and then went back to scrapbook each week into his baby album.

If I ever have the chance to do my own portraits again, I'm totally going to do something like this one: Pacing the Panic Room Maternity Shots. I LOVE how it's set up. Creative people make me so jealous, haha.

There are just so many different ways you can document it...if you have a good idea, or a link to something cool you saw, just go ahead and leave a comment.

Have fun, and send me some baby dust so I can do better pictures this time!