Check list for first shoot - Maternity

[sgoehl]

It's nothing formal, just a friend who wants a few snaps of her belly.

Anyone have any suggestions on what I need to bring? What would be good to do?
This will be my first planned photo shoot.

She's only a few months along so I have a while to prepare. I've told her to start looking up maternity pictures and get some ideas.

Any tips, ideas, and suggestions would be helpful.

I'm a super noob.

[BigFuzzy]

Trust me, you think it's nothing formal, but your friend damn well wants nice photos regardless of what she says haha.

My tips are this:
Make sure you know about lighting whether it be natural light or flash.

Know you camera and how to adjust things to compensate for the conditions. Dont' waste time fiddling while at the shoot, it helps no one.

Have a plan and ideas of things you want to do in your head so you're not there on the day of the shoot standing around wondering "gee, what should we do next" Go to something like flickr.com and do a search on maternity photos and start planning. As I always tell people, be prepared but also let it flow naturally. Start off with a couple of planned things that you know you can do well and show them to her. She'll see a nice photo, get relaxed and then the session will flow from there. Then, when/if you hit any rough spots in terms of ideas, revert back to the research you've done in advance.

Though you say your friend doesn't expect much, the minute she's standing around waiting for you to get your settings right or to think of any idea (that's your job, not hers by the way), she'll lose confidence and it'll show in the images, trust me.


As for what to bring, this is what I always have for any shoot, including maternity (though I don't always use everything seeing as no two shoots are the same).
Lens with large aperture (at least 2.8 but 1.8 or bigger is better)
At least one flash with the ability to use it as a large light source (ie for soft light which is great for maternity shoots).
A reflector if you're using natural light.
Come with ideas, a cheat sheet per se.

I know you say you're super noob, but I still think you can do the above to get the most out of it as I assume you'd like to do.

[BigFuzzy]

Just for inspiration, showing what you can do with minimal kit here are a few I took recently with my 50mm 1.8 100euro lens, one canon 430ex lens, and a little preparation and know-how.
Plus, maybe you can get some ideas from my shots:








Hope that helps.

[BigFuzzy]

A couple more







Yes, include the daddy!

[Happy_Mummy]

Just an idea to include other sibling(s) to be or pets as well as Daddy. I have a photo of me where Cassie is sitting on my bump and Vanessa is "pushing it up" from below. I have also seen the peek-a-boo sibling shot - I think it is normally taken by the pregnant woman looking down at her belly and the older child is peeking out the end. One of my favourite preggo photos was when hubby was being goofy when someone took the photo and it is taken side on, with dh behind me, peeking over my shoulder, pointing at my belly with a holy cow look on his face.
Here are some examples:
Tori Kaiser's Photos | Facebook
Tori Kaiser's Photos | Facebook
Tori Kaiser's Photos | Facebook
Tori Kaiser's Photos | Facebook

I hope that helps! i'm not one for the bare belly pics, but finding mat shirts long enough for my belly is a pain, so I end up with the shirt "break" to high...