Capturing the intimacy of parents-to-be – Bump Photography
Do you dare to bare your bulge? Ever since those infamous photographs of Demi Moore, half-naked supporting her rather large belly and embracing her future motherhood, photographing moms-to-be has become increasingly popular.
For me personally, it’s something I love to do, as so often when we chat with moms-to-be in the studio, we find that they often feel, instead of “blooming beautifully,” scruffy and uncomfortable. If we can create images that reflect the beauty and intimacy of this time with mom and her baby, then we have done our job well.
So how do you approach recording this forever special moment without producing something that mom doesn’t want to look back on later and think about how great it was? First of all, lighting is key to everything. In the studio, we like to use a variety of lighting techniques, but my favorite for “bump” images is probably low key lighting against a dark background. By “low key” lighting I mean the lighting is fairly dim, not bright, and often set in such a way that it illuminates only the area of the subject that I want to be the center of attention. The bare flesh also adds to the effect in this type of portrait, but if mom is a little nervous or embarrassed about this, she doesn’t have to be completely naked like in Demi’s photos, but it could just be the bulge shown with the rolled up woman’s top. up but cropped out of image.
Sometimes, however, we use “high key” lighting (ie bright lights and a white background) along with strong colors to emphasize the mothers sense of fun and “joie de vivre”. All photography is subjective and it is important to remember that, especially in photography, one size does not fit all; in other words, we match the lighting and backgrounds to the subject, sometimes using a combination of different lighting techniques.
Go topless, and that’s just dad! The intimacy between mommy, daddy, and tummy is heightened even more if you can make daddy go topless! Positioning dad kneeling and cradling or kissing the tummy is also good because it shows us how he looks at her wife in awe as she sees her carrying the most precious gift he could ever give her. The lights in his study need to be positioned to highlight the bulge and if he’s lucky, dad might kiss the baby he already loves on mom’s tummy. The moments captured can be very personal and intimate, where the viewer can read a lot.
Personally speaking, as the photographer who often knows the couple well, since they likely started out as one of our engaged couples, these photographs show me not only that dad loves mom because of the size and shape she is, but but also that he is loving his unborn baby.
Don’t be afraid to crop Don’t be afraid to crop your images in an unusual way. One of my favorite photos I’ve ever taken was made special by the letterbox crop we applied to it; without cropping this image as hard, some of the impact of the image would have been lost. This photo was taken on a “high key” or white background, using a totally different lighting setup for a completely different look. This is a picture showing dad kissing mom and her unborn baby and mom kissing dad. The emphasis of this image and why it is so moving, in my opinion, is the love that is clearly within the family unit. What we are witnessing here when looking at this image is a love story: mommy loves daddy, who loves both mommy and baby.
One of the lessons here is that computers can’t make a bad image good, but they can make a good image great. By implementing widescreen cropping on the image, you have completely changed how the image looks and what it tells the viewer. When we first took the photo, we knew exactly what crop to put next, but I guess the message here is don’t be afraid to experiment with your photos: try different crops and see what it does for you. the pictures. Often if you crop right into the focus of the image, you’ll see a different image form in front of your eyes, but the real skill in photography is seeing that image before you crop it, or better yet, cropping it in-camera in the first place. place.
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