Photoshoot ideas
Maternity photoshoot ideas
The strongest maternity images are built on light and shape rather than props. What follows are concepts that hold up years later, when the balloons and the chalkboard signs have dated badly.
Photoshoot ideas
The strongest maternity images are built on light and shape rather than props. What follows are concepts that hold up years later, when the balloons and the chalkboard signs have dated badly.
In short: The strongest maternity images are built on light and shape rather than props. What follows are concepts that hold up years later, when the balloons and the chalkboard signs have dated badly.
Between roughly 28 and 34 weeks, when the bump is clearly defined and standing for a session is still comfortable.
Stand side-on to a window or the low sun with the light behind you. The shape reads instantly, no expression is required, and it is the frame most people end up printing large.
Ordinary sheets, no styling, natural light. Documentary rather than produced, and the setting is genuinely yours — which is what makes it worth keeping.
Jersey or silk, one strong colour, nothing else in the frame. It photographs as a portrait rather than a maternity shoot, which is why it ages well.
Yours and your partner's, or yours alone, close and cropped. Requires nothing of anyone's face and gives a gallery its quiet frames.
Shot first, while the child is still patient. Sitting on the floor works better than any arrangement where a small person has to stand still.
Photographed in a mirror in your own home. It puts the room in the picture and it removes the sense of performing for a lens.
A field, a wall, a stretch of water — one background, no clutter. London parks work in the hour after sunrise, before the dog walkers arrive.
Skin, light and shape without the distraction of colour. The most forgiving treatment there is, and the one that dates least.
Home is genuinely the best option here — it is warm, there is somewhere to sit, and you can stop. A studio gives controlled light and a clean background. Outdoors is beautiful in the right month and miserable in the wrong one; in London that means May to September for comfort, and the hour after sunrise for light and empty parks.
An hour at £300 covers a compact maternity session with one look, including ten retouched photographs; a second look is £100. Studio hire, if used, runs £35–£180 per hour. Additional retouched images are £10 each.
Usually between 28 and 34 weeks — the bump is defined and standing through a session is still comfortable. Earlier for twins.
Fitted fabric that shows the shape, or one flowing piece with the waist defined under the bust. Try it on the week of the shoot, not when you book.
No. Some of the strongest frames are fully clothed and in profile, with light doing the work.