Great DIY picture ideas on how to take maternity photos at home.
Not sure about heading to a professional studio and getting a set of maternity portraits done? Whatever your reasons, whether they be worries about your budget, that you don't feel well or you're unsure about being photographed, you're right to consider them. To create beautiful maternity portraits in a studio, a photographer has to have a very good understanding of lighting, poses and editing.
Today we will talk about how to take maternity photos at home. A little DIY project for you. Possibly discuss pregnancy photo shoot ideas with husband. Get him involved.
The idea of sharing tips for creating simple DIY maternity portraits has been lingering on my mind for the past year or so. Finally, along with undertaking another big maternity project, I decided that it's the perfect time to release this material. You will find some finished images with set-up diagrams to help you to replicate them. These should give you a good sense of where the photographer (your partner) should be and the setting we used.
What we will be covering today:
I want this ideas sheet to be very simple and basic. Nothing too fancy, no fancy lights, no fancy cameras, just a simple understanding of light and some basic camera settings. Everything it features will be something you can do at home.
We will need a camera, daylight and (ideally) a tripod with a remote control to trigger the camera. If you have a simple "point and shoot" camera, then a self timer will do.
I will talk you through some basic maternity poses, which are always a hit at my studio.
In this particular case, the family had a decent DSLR camera and we used a remote control to trigger the images. This makes life easier because you can take lots of photographs and have a wider choice of images. Not every camera has this function. Another option is to use a self timer function. This means a lot of running backwards and forwards to achieve that perfect shot. During this shoot, we had a toddler with us, so it made coordinating everyone and pressing the self timer button quite tricky.
Your partner can of course take the photos, but if he wants to feature in them, then a remote control would be useful. If you photograph with a "point and shoot", then a self timer is likely to be your only option.
In this photo you can see the clicker in his hand, but at least the whole family is in the shot.
#3 Watch the background.
Make sure there is not too much clutter, clothes and weird shapes like chairs and lamps. Try to have as simple a background as possible.
In this particular example we decided to do a few darker shots in an open plan living room. To have the best use of the light I put the kitchen in the background, which was definitely not good for the photo.
Instead I noticed that there was a window behind, so I just closed the blinds to create this image. We need to get kitchen area as dark as possible. I applied a strong vignette in post process and it was finished. It has a nice shape and light.
In this particular case we didn't do any shots with the mum's belly exposed, as she wasn't entirely comfortable with the idea. If you feel the same, then wear tank tops or maternity dresses, but try to avoid clothing with a lot of texture or wrinkles at the front.
The top she is wearing creates very simple lines too. If you are unsure about photographing your arms or shoulders, cover them up with a plain scarf or perhaps a small poncho. Just make sure you can still see your belly.
#5 Make a shot list.
This sounds very obvious, but preparation is your best friend. If you are prepared and know in advance what poses you will be photographing, you can decide what clothing you will wear in each image. These are two less things for you to worry about on the day. You will be playing with your camera and trying to get things right, so you won't want to be thinking about your clothes.
Why not take a look on Pinterest for some ideas, or at the photos on my website.
Camera settings: In this particular case I didn't want the family to fiddle too much with the settings and manual functions on their camera. If you have no idea how your camera works, then here's my advice for both DSLR and "point and shoot" cameras.
- Set the image quality at the highest setting. This will ensure that you have the maximum amount of data to work with when you edit the images. If you know a bit more about photography then the RAW format will work for you, but for now let's stick with the simple JPEG format.
- Put the camera into the auto setting. Yes you heard me right: AUTO. These days cameras are pretty clever when it comes to determining exposure and colour temperature.
- To adjust the exposure of the image, I always recommend to go by something called exposure compensation where you can underexpose or overexpose images by 2 stops. For most of this particular project I used the -1 setting as I wanted the highlights to be retained. This is especially true when using the JPEG image setting. Only backlit images were set to +2 to overexpose the window.
#6 Make up and Hair.
It sounds very obvious, right? But for lots of mums-to-be, make-up and hair isn't top of their "to do" list. For the sake of making your life easier when you're editing your images, and to feel pleased with the results, bear in mind that it's worth applying a little natural make up and fixing your hair.
This will also help you to feel that these photographs are marking a special occasion.
Your belly will grow and you will feel heavier every day and also less willing to do anything. I tend to photograph maternity sessions now around 8 weeks before due date. Belly is nice, but not massive and mums feel more willing to do poses and experiment with ideas.
TIP: Take as many photos as you can. As a professional photographer I tweak everything until I'm happy and then I start shooting. For you, I would recommend that you take more photographs with lots of variations so that you have more choices later. I always say, it doesn't cost you anything to take more images. You will just spend longer choosing the ones you like.
Try different angles.
Try to photograph from above too. It's not easy, but sometimes it can result in some nice images which will show your belly well from an unusual angle.
One of the most popular ideas you can do at home is to create silhouette images. These can feature either the mum-to-be alone, couples or the whole family.
TIP: This is one of the situations where you'll want to set your camera's exposure compensation to +2. This will brighten up the window and create the silhouette effect for you. It's easiest to take this type of photo when it's very bright outside.
There are different poses on a sofa that you can use for maternity photographs. Move the sofa in front of a window for a nicer light, get the whole family on the sofa and cuddle up. Whatever you do, make sure that your bump is very visible. This is the purpose of the session, after all.
This particular family had some photographs taken next to a window, and I was keen to try some darker images too. I suggested involving their toddler, and it was easiest to sit him on his mum's lap, where he could talk and interact with her. Try getting your toddler to read a book, play with your belly and generally keep him or her busy.
TIP: If you have lots of space, please step away as far as you can and zoom into your subject. This is called background compression. I always do this during home sessions to avoid unwanted objects and to concentrate on the subjects I am photographing.
In this case I had to avoid photographing objects on the wall, so I decided to place the camera further away and zoom in on the subjects.
I'm an Edinburgh based portrait photographer who specialises in maternity, newborn and family photography. I love to come up with new projects and ideas to help my community and share my knowledge.
Special thanks to my friends who were willing to pose for me and learn something new.
I hope this will help you to create some fantastic maternity images by yourself in your own home environment.
Thank you for reading and feel free to share it with your expectant friends.
Regards,
Armands
