Fellow DPS photographer Natalie Norton wrote an article awhile back giving tips on shooting pregnant tummies outdoors. This article covers what you need to know when doing it inside with controlled lighting. I questioned whether an article about maternity photography would be useful to many readers, but in the end, most of the tips shared here can be used for many types of portrait photography, be it mothers-to-be or couch potatoes with beer bellies.
Step 1: Setting up your backgrounds.
When mentally preparing for a photo shoot, it’s good to have an idea of what type of images you want to end up with. For both studio and outdoor sessions, much of the mood in an image comes from the background. Because it’s below freezing in VA right now, having a pregnant woman sit and freeze while I try and position her chin just right isn’t an option, so down to the cozy basement we went. I wanted two dramatically different backgrounds typical for this type of shoot: black and white. A plain white wall usually doesn’t work well. Most painted walls provide too much glare. So, to get a smoothly lit background many studios turn to the high-tech material commonly known as paper.
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