Maternity Photo Question

[TraceyHill3]

I'm taking maternity photos of my sister next week. I've seen some great poses where the mother is looking down at her belly. How do I pose my sister this way without it giving her a double-chin? She's sensitive about that and probably won't want to look down. Are there lighting tricks I can use?

[SusanH1970]

Try shooting down on her - get a step-stool. A view from slightly above will help disguise a double-chin. Are you using natural light or studio? If studio, feather your main light to give lots of shadowing and keep it fairly high to put her neck/chin in shadow, but not so high that you get weird shadows. And (dare I say it), there's always a bit of post-processing that can help, as long as it's kept natural.

An example. She looks tiny, but when she looked down, she got a bigtime double chin. I was ever-so-slightly above her, and I used the liquefy tool in Photoshop to subtly nudge things back to where she wanted.

[justin_ing]

don't ever shoot a woman from under

you can experiment too with a shot from above on a step ladder... the chin is completely hidden then. I've seen it work in many scenarios before.

[TraceyHill3]

Thanks so much. This really helps! I will be using a stepladder anyway since she's a little taller than me. I want to get a good angle. We will shoot some photos inside and some out. I will try your suggestions with the lighting and posing. I've tried the liquefy tool on photoshop and really need more practice on that. Pictures look so funny when I use it. Thanks!