Bryan Park Maternity Photos: What I Learned
When I switched my website from one host to another (another one of those fun business things that is apparently necessary every once in a while), none of my photos moved over from Wordpress to Squarespace. None of them transferring over was slightly tragic, but really has given me the chance to take a look my photos and blog entries and make some edits. So here are some photos from a 2016 maternity session, re-edited in 2022. It’s amazing what I learned from this particular maternity session, and I’ll share some of that with you since I now have 6 years of separation and can look back objectively.
I should have changed the location.
May 2016 was super wet and rainy, and we had found a brief, miraculous pause from rain for our session. The problem that I should have anticipated but didn’t was that everything was now soaking wet. Of course I should have anticipated this. It had rained for a week straight at this point. So everything was also soggy. And on top of that, everything was so. very. green. That much bright green is difficult for photography, because it turns skin tones a sickly color (no matter the skin tone) and is a real bear to edit afterwards.
This couple had come from out of town to visit family and was gifted a session with me, but they knew nothing about the location. I should have used my local knowledge and photography expertise to choose a spot that was a) dry; b) not soggy; and c) not so green. 2022 me knows better, and does better.
I should have scouted in person.
I was counting on the Azalea Garden to be in bloom at Bryan Park, and didn’t physically go to the park to check it out. This was in 2016, and while I cared deeply about my business, I was also working a full-time job at VCU and was working long days in preparation for Move Out and Summer (capital S for summer at VCU, because that’s a Whole Thing). I started scouting locations ahead of sessions after this painful lesson of finding no flowers and only wet green. The only places I don’t scout ahead of time in person are clients’ homes. Because, well, it’s a client’s home.
I should have posed less and let them just interact more.
It really is a nice exercise to go back and compare yourself to your earlier self (the only legitimate comparison, really). I have learned so much about photography, myself, and my photography style in the last 6 years. Not to mention the actual skill-building I’ve done in that amount of time. Maternity photography is so hard for clients. Family clients who are interacting with small kids tend to relax faster, because the kids kind of take over a session and allow parents to forget there’s a camera there. But for maternity couples, when one person is pregnant and already very aware of how she looks, it takes more effort to relax, and posing just accentuates that stiffness. Now I know to get my clients to move around, and some exercises to get clients to relax at the start of a session.
I should have gotten to know them.
Just piggybacking off the above. These poor clients from out of town, whom I didn’t meet or talk to on the phone beforehand (that process has since changed), had no idea what to expect when we got together. I didn’t know anything about them, they didn’t know anything about me, and the fact that we met in a wet, grassy field in a strange place and just started taking pictures really makes it all the more amazing that we got any decent photos at all.
I’ve learned a lot in the six years since this session. I can’t believe their child is nearly six years old now, and I hope they’ve found a photographer in their town that has taken good care of them and their growing family over the years. My bet is they have.
If you’d like to see how my maternity photography has evolved, you can check out my updated portfolio here.
