Babyllies

Let me write my thoughts before they vanish from my mind.

Today I did something great and went out of my comfort zone. I asked a friend to photograph her pregnancy some time ago, and she agreed! After packing all the stuff on my bike (was more like a Vietnamese tuck-tuck with so much equipment hanging), I ride to her house, which is ten minutes from mine.

After having a small vendetta with her neighbor because I was unloading the bike on the sidewalk, we started the session.

I had written down a bit of what I wanted to do, and it came quite nice, but of course, full of failures, I have planned three settings, in the end we made four settings and after shooting for 1 ½ hours, I think I will come out with 12 good pictures.

Lessons learned? A lot! I concluded that I might get good on it if I keep practicing but if I go on taking pictures so sporadically, I cannot earn one cent with it ☺ so let me stay on the hobby side.

And the small details that I never, ever will dare to forget:

- Choose two or three settings and pose carefully. Pregnancy photography is not like a photo-journalistic wedding, not at all Sir! It is ten times more difficult.
- A minimum of four hours is needed to everything. I now realize I was rushing a bit because we both needed to pickup the kids at school.
- Be prepared to create a background. And here I need equipment, not only the old curtain I brought. Real backdrop, real textile.
- Simplify, simplify and simplify. Don’t try to do much. Choose three or four settings, stick to them and pose using the settings.
- Vary the poses and the angles on the setting. That I did well!
- In the name of all the saints on this planet: learn how to work with different lighting conditions! I did not have a lot of windows to play with and I forgot completely of my reflector. As a result, some of the pictures have a sacrificed exposure.
- Pose CAREFULLY. Watch out for hair that is not well positioned or falling on the face. If you are going to wrap the woman on fabrics, please BE SURE they are tight and not hanging loose, specially on the upper body.

Now I will start to have fun…. The post-process will begin! And that is what I like most.

But before I start it, I need to go over the images, on and on, until I find the style, the mood and the correct post-processing for every one of them.

Final balance: I loved doing it! I am writing down under my pillow that I secretly desire to have more time to photograph people. I feel I can do it if I practice more. But for now, I will keep photographing the tomatoes in my kitchen…

Thank you Mamallies!