First Maternity Shoot

My neighbor invited me to a baby shower today she was hosting, which turned into asking me to do a maternity shoot..

Since I haven't done any maternity yet I thought it'd be a great opportunity to see if I could get some good shots to expand my portfolio. Here are a couple. Thoughts welcomed.

3 and 4

I noticed her legs are kind of blotchy but I don't know how to fix it.

5 and 6

Last two, thanks for looking.

I figured out how to even out the skin tones on her legs:

For something unplanned, it came out good. I didn't know what was going on with the marker (I guessed he was drawing a face) until the next image. Maybe use a marker image from later in the story, so one knows what he was drawing?

Other than that, I have nothing of value to add. Good work! I'm glad you figured our how to clean up her legs without "overcooking" it.

I think #6, #7 & #8 are the good ones. They show emotion, joy and family.

The environment is not very pleasing to me, so something carry your eyes to the people works better, as mentioned, family showing emotion and stuff works best there.

The one with the mother posed by herself, just standing at attention and looking away, is probably the weakest of the bunch. I would stick to the crops with her interacting with the father.

Very best,

Hmm.. no more favors I think. The father just posted some of them on FB (I submitted around 30) and every single one has a horrible filter and awkward crop. I've spent a lot of time meticulously editing them for my work to be messed up.

Lesson learned. Paying clients and a contract going forward.

atsilverstein wrote in post #18069635
Hmm.. no more favors I think. The father just posted some of them on FB (I submitted around 30) and every single one has a horrible filter and awkward crop. I've spent a lot of time meticulously editing them for my work to be messed up.

Lesson learned. Paying clients and a contract going forward.

Unfortunately, contracts won't stop all of your clients from injecting their own creative flourishes.

I agree with Mal that the background environment isn't working very well, but I understand the shoot was unplanned. There's something about foliage that just doesn't always render well for portraits IMO. Take that with a grain of salt, because I may have an exaggerated aversion to it. The b&w shot is my favorite because it looks like a natural candid moment, the background underexposure minimizes the aforementioned environmental issue, and the processing in general is more pleasing to my eye.

atsilverstein wrote in post #18069635
Hmm.. no more favors I think. The father just posted some of them on FB (I submitted around 30) and every single one has a horrible filter and awkward crop. I've spent a lot of time meticulously editing them for my work to be messed up.

Lesson learned. Paying clients and a contract going forward.

go ahead and get over the fact that people will do stupid things with your photos. If you really want to limit this problem, only sell prints.

atsilverstein wrote in post #18069635
Hmm.. no more favors I think. The father just posted some of them on FB (I submitted around 30) and every single one has a horrible filter and awkward crop. I've spent a lot of time meticulously editing them for my work to be messed up.

Lesson learned. Paying clients and a contract going forward.

This happens to $3k wedding photos. Don't sweat it. Everyone, including paying clients even with contracts, will do this. Consider it free advertisement. If you restrict sharing/editing, few will respect it, and it will likely earn you less clients in the future--and they will still share/edit anyways. It would cost you more in legal fees to stop someone. After they pay, just ignore what they do with it after that, or you will literally lose your mind. Your work is a product that you're selling to someone. Apple doesn't come to your house to see what you're doing with their computer they sold you, right? Just a metaphor...

Very best,

MalVeauX wrote in post #18069651
This happens to $3k wedding photos. Don't sweat it. Everyone, including paying clients even with contracts, will do this. Consider it free advertisement. If you restrict sharing/editing, few will respect it, and it will likely earn you less clients in the future--and they will still share/edit anyways. It would cost you more in legal fees to stop someone. After they pay, just ignore what they do with it after that, or you will literally lose your mind. Your work is a product that you're selling to someone. Apple doesn't come to your house to see what you're doing with their computer they sold you, right? Just a metaphor...

Very best,

That's not a good analogy.. computers are built for individual customization and you also agree to for example, with Microsoft not to mess with the software. Just saying.


But I get your point.

Posing the subjects is the photographer's responsibility and in images 1, 2 and 5, your subjects could really have used some direction. Also, since I don't see any hard shadows, you should have told him to lose the sun glasses. When he's not wearing them, he's carrying them and they're a distraction either way.

MalVeaux mentioned that the environment was not pleasing to him and I think it's not so much the environment, but that it should have been blurred more. Shallow DOF is not just dependent upon a wide aperture, but focal length and distance also must be considered. Not sure how much working room you had, but just setting your aperture to f/2 will not guarantee blurred backgrounds.

Sorry to hear about your unscrupulous client.

Thanks for the feedback all. I'm definitely going to think about how to improve my shooting. Fortunately this was done as a favor since I was put on the spot, and so I got a new category to add to my portfolio and a good learning experience while not on a paying client's expense.

My favourites are the one with the marker and the following one. They show emotion and they are nice. I agree with the sunglasses. Having said that, the first time you do or shoot something, it is more of a learning experience than anything else. It is great experience and I am sure that they were happy with the photos. I know I would. About the editing aspect, I think that that is unavoidable this day and age, with so many apps. What are you going to do? even if you have a contract, you'd lose time and money trying to implement it.