Indoor maternity shoot, need advice!

I am going to be practicing my very first maternity shoot this weekend and just found out the mom wan't to do it indoors. I have never done any indoor shooting except for newborns who I just pose right in front of a big window. All I have is a backdrop stand (will be here tomorrow) a roll of white seamless paper and a small wood floor studio set up I recently put together. As far as lighting goes I only have my 430EX external flash for my 50D and a lightsphere.....I know not good for indoor shoot!
What would you do if you were in this situation. What would be my cheapest but best route before Sunday?? Should I go down and buy a black muslin backround, more paper, some sort of lighting??
Just to be clear this is JUST practice but of course I would like the mom to walk away with some decent shots! I would really love any advice and quick lol!
FYI - We plan on doing mainly belly shots, not whole body, she doesn't really want her face in the shots. She wants some of her 2 boys kissing her belly, all their hands on the belly, holding little shoes by her belly, one where their whole family lines up and the picture is just from the front and from their knees down (focussing on the shoes), and possibly one full body shot.

I am doing my wife's maternity shots right now (she's pretty early still at 20 weeks, but practice makes perfect). In doing them, I've learned a couple things I'll pass on.

1. Watch clothing hanging down in the belly shots.

2. Use your 430 on camera and bounce off a wall or ceiling to get some extra fill light. If you're married, time for hubby to earn some brownie points as a model so you can see the effects. Try and do it at the same time of day.

3. Do you have to buy a black backdrop? No. Are they more friendly than white GIVEN YOUR SITUATION? Yes. I'm doing all ours on black. Yes, you can replace it in PP, but that, I have found, is a PITA.

4. If you can get a set wireless triggers, that would allow you to get the flash off camera, which would help. Whether or not you can buy those locally, I have no idea. You would then need something to hold them unless you have some sort of waist high furniture in the room to sit them on.

5. Not sure what a lightsphere is, but a soft box would be an excellent purchase. Softbox + stand + OCF = much better pictures.

Good lcuk and remember, I am not a professional, so you may get better replies than mine. These just come from my current experience.

Thank you so much for all of your advice, I appreciate it so much!!
I have been experimenting with my flash today trying to figure it out, not having much luck! I really feel like I should go down and buy some sort of softobox but I have no idea what to buy or what brand of strobe to get with it. I went to a camera store the other night and saw a softbox setup for $265 but wasn't sure exactly what it was. I have never done any type of lighting so I am clueless here. What is OCF?
What type of black backfrop are you using? Paper, muslin, fabric?

why don't you just bounce your speedlight off the white seamless... in principle, that's what I did with the maternity shoot I did.... I metered it and made sure ... I was getting F/8.

I was using 2 strobes here though... just make sure she's close to the seamless.

Stacey8221 wrote in post #10709815
Thank you so much for all of your advice, I appreciate it so much!!
I have been experimenting with my flash today trying to figure it out, not having much luck! I really feel like I should go down and buy some sort of softobox but I have no idea what to buy or what brand of strobe to get with it. I went to a camera store the other night and saw a softbox setup for $265 but wasn't sure exactly what it was. I have never done any type of lighting so I am clueless here. What is OCF?
What type of black backfrop are you using? Paper, muslin, fabric?

Stacey, OCF = "off camera flash". The first thing that came to my mind when you said what gear you have, is that you must do at least a few shots using the 430 to blow out your white seamless and leave the mother silhouetted from the side (showing off that beautiful belly!). For a variation of this, you could probably stand her a little closer to the backdrop and get some wraparound light to add a bit of depth.

Also, like huntersdad said, getting a light stand and a reflective umbrella could let you use that white backdrop to get solid black, depending on the size of your studio area (a gridded softbox would be better, but the reflective umbrella is cheaper).

If you can get the flash off-camera by then, take a look at this:

http://www.zarias.com …ull-length-with-onelight/

It's an article about shooting against white seamless with a single speedlite.

Really, there's no option but to get the flash off-camera. The easiest way with the gear you have is to get an optical slave for the speedlite and trigger it with your pop-up flash (manually set to low power to minimize its influence on exposure).

If there's no place local to get an optical slave in time, try here.

If you don't want to use the white, go and buy you a cheap black bed sheet. It will work just fine for you.