Thought I'd share a few maternity shots that I did with my wife last week. We got started later than I wanted and only had about 15 minutes of sunlight, and with each minute that passed it got about a half stop darker... darn fall/winter sunsets
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Best I could come up with given the time and the kit I packed (1 SB-800 and a 43" silver reflective umbrella. Oh, and an Sb-600 on the ground for a few poorly-executed rim light shots). As you can tell I tried a variety of PP techniques. Hope I didn't overdo it, but I couldn't settle to have all of them look the same
And before you say it, I know, I REALLY need a tele lens. These were with the Tamron 28-75mm, my longest right now. They're not quite TACK sharp either because of the shutter speed I had to use given the falling light level (had to drag the shutter a tad to get ambient exposure good too). Wish I'd started about half an hour earlier
I thought I'd have to cancel the whole thing because I forgot the hotshoe adapter for my umbrella mount so I had no way to mount my flash. Then I thought of this...
I call it the world's most expensive hotshoe adapter
I think these came out quite nice! I like your BW conversion, although #3 is my fave. Wait, no 10. No 3. 3 or 10, definitely. I like the sunset in #4 quite a lot too. For cc,
#2 - I don't think the PP fits the mood, but that's personal pref
#8 - the angle slims out her tummy too much & the light behind her knees draws the eye there for no reason
#9 - lovely pose, but my eye keeps going to the hot spots on her jeans pockets
Have fun with that new baby, have you found out girl or boy?
Agilehound wrote:
I think these came out quite nice! I like your BW conversion, although #3 is my fave. Wait, no 10. No 3. 3 or 10, definitely. I like the sunset in #4 quite a lot too. For cc,
#2 - I don't think the PP fits the mood, but that's personal pref
#8 - the angle slims out her tummy too much & the light behind her knees draws the eye there for no reason
#9 - lovely pose, but my eye keeps going to the hot spots on her jeans pockets
Have fun with that new baby, have you found out girl or boy?...Show more →
Thanks so much for the feedback! Re your CC:
#2 - I can see what you mean. I was just going for variety and thought it worked okay, but yeah
#8 - I hear ya. I was having a hard time wrangling that SB-600 "rimlight" and ended up botching it pretty bad. Didn't have a mount/stand/diffuser for it, and I was shooting too fast to get the levels right unfortunately. As for the tummy slimming, I agree, though the wide angle was to blame as well.
#9 - see above re: "rimlight issues"
And it's a boy! We've got about 6 weeks to go...
Thanks again. I have more from this set I may post later if you care to see any more.
The mother to be looks very pretty, happy, and comfortable.
I liked seeing her expressions.
The setting is nice. The colors good (the natural ones).
I liked several of the images and do think she is pretty them, but prefer the POV and perspective of 4 over 5.
Well done.
My Simple Suggestion for Next Time: "Be Remote." (See my Tips on Getting in the Picture). If you don't have that tip, send me a PM and I will send you a link to it.
Agilehound wrote:
I would love to see more! We're thinking about #2 right now, so I'm all about deluding myself I'll be a lovely preggo lady like your wife is.
And congrats on the boy!!!
Haha thanks! This is our first so we're in uncharted territory, but we're definitely looking forward to it.
Definitely #9, which is great to express the caress a mom has for her baby.
Great idea for the hotshoe flash adapter, I will use it too in my future shots
I'm scrolling through these and thinking what a nice wife you have, to allow you to take pictures of her without throwing things at you, cussing, tossing sarcasm around and running off into other rooms. Not that I know anyone like that, of course... And when I got to #4 I thought oh no, water busted! Her facial expression changed 180. These are very nice photos and fun to see. Thanks for sharing! And, of course, congratulations to you two.
Don't you poor nikon guys get a floor stand with your flashes that have a 1/4 20 thread in the bottom Canon flashes FTW :P, and some nice shot here too.
squareeyez wrote:
I'm scrolling through these and thinking what a nice wife you have, to allow you to take pictures of her without throwing things at you, cussing, tossing sarcasm around and running off into other rooms. Not that I know anyone like that, of course... And when I got to #4 I thought oh no, water busted! Her facial expression changed 180. These are very nice photos and fun to see. Thanks for sharing! And, of course, congratulations to you two.
Haha, thanks, and yes, I know what you mean. She's not always such a willing subject, but since it's a big event and all she wants to have nice shots to look back on. I think she's planning on doing an album/scrapbook for the baby and wanted some nice shots of her pregnancy for it as well, so she had an incentive to be cooperative
tdurnan wrote:
Don't you poor nikon guys get a floor stand with your flashes that have a 1/4 20 thread in the bottom Canon flashes FTW :P, and some nice shot here too.
Yep, we do get such a floor stand - that's what I'd accidentally left in my other bag at home. How are Canon flashes better in this regard? I normally use a hotshoe adapter but didn't have one on that stand for some reason.
Oh, and two words: Nikon CLS :P
Agilehound wrote:
Love the environment in #13 and IMHO #16 blows #9 completely out of the water.
Thanks so much! I definitely agree about #16 > #9
I have some indoor ones that I'll post at some point, probably in a new thread since they're a different shoot/environment/etc...