My first maternity shoot...

[demain]

I usually dont do much with portrait photography, but my soon to be sister-in-law is going to be having a little boy in Feb and she wanted me to take some maternity pics for her. This was the first time I have ever attempted to do a formal portrait photoshoot. Comments and Criticism welcome!

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

 

[brianne5499]

Those are Beautiful!

 

[AlfromLA]

I like the first pic the most.

 

[MHarvey]

3 and 4 are my favorite, i like the facial expression of the couple in both, i think you captured the emotions very well. great job!

 

[jv08]

4 and 6 are best. The expressions are great.

 

[demain]

Thanks everyone!

 

[bigtwinky]

1 and 2 are way too dark for my taste.
You don’t see where her arm is in 1 and her entire body melts into the shadows in 2. A little less darkness would mean you would cut her out of the picture a bit more and make her stand out.

3 is also very dark, but the darkness doesn’t affect the overall picture. The water looks very black. I dunno… I guess maternity and darkness aren’t things I normally put together. They are also not too in focus.

4 is my favourite picture of the set. Nice colours, nice facial expressions. The picture doesn’t seem as sharp as it can be, but its still nice. If I were to change something it would be the blue blanket. Seems like the colours are a bit too saturated and the blue jeans + blue blanket are a bit strong


While I like the overall set, I find always having them looking down gets to be a bit depressing. The only one they are not looking down at is #3, where they are looking at each other. I love to see crisp and clear eyes in portraits. I get the mood and pose, but would be nice to have some variety. Seems a bit somber for something that she be happy.

For a first portrait set, they are pretty good. I think you got most poses and backgrounds right (except for the black on black and faces looking down IMO). The technicalities of taking portraits to ensure a great exposure in the camera so you don’t have to work too much in photoshop afterwards.

 

[demain]

1 and 2 are way too dark for my taste.
You don’t see where her arm is in 1 and her entire body melts into the shadows in 2. A little less darkness would mean you would cut her out of the picture a bit more and make her stand out.

3 is also very dark, but the darkness doesn’t affect the overall picture. The water looks very black. I dunno… I guess maternity and darkness aren’t things I normally put together. They are also not too in focus.

4 is my favourite picture of the set. Nice colours, nice facial expressions. The picture doesn’t seem as sharp as it can be, but its still nice. If I were to change something it would be the blue blanket. Seems like the colours are a bit too saturated and the blue jeans + blue blanket are a bit strong


While I like the overall set, I find always having them looking down gets to be a bit depressing. The only one they are not looking down at is #3, where they are looking at each other. I love to see crisp and clear eyes in portraits. I get the mood and pose, but would be nice to have some variety. Seems a bit somber for something that she be happy.

For a first portrait set, they are pretty good. I think you got most poses and backgrounds right (except for the black on black and faces looking down IMO). The technicalities of taking portraits to ensure a great exposure in the camera so you don’t have to work too much in photoshop afterwards.

Thanks for the input! Very helpful. I agree that the ones where she wore the black shirt made things a little too dark and that the one with the pond in the background blended in too well with their shirts. The black also made it hard to emphasize the belly....if I ever do it again I think I will suggest against black shirts. I really didnt do much work in photoshop except for tweaking the white balance, exposure, and saturation a little on a few of them before converting them from RAW to JPEG.:thumbup: