New Gig

[DivotDan]

I've been asked to do a maternity shoot for a couple I know. I've never done one before, and with that understanding I told them I would be happy to give it a shot.

The question I have is if anyone here has ever done one before and if so do they have any suggestions on how to do this successfully? I've been looking on some other sites to get an idea of different styles and options. I have a 240w Novatron strobe kit with 3 heads, an SB-800, a gray and a black muslin, and background stands......so I feel like I have enough equipment to set it up correctly.

I guess since i haven't done this before I was looking for some shot ideas or concepts that others might be acquainted with. I know this is most likely not going to get any bites here but you never know. They want me to come back and do the newborn shoot in a month or so too, which I have done and I'm comfortable with....but I would like to WOW them with this shoot so I can knock their socks off on the next one.

Thanks

[Moojangles]

hmm just thinking about some ideas, how about some back-lit silhouettes a la Alfred Hitchcock. Give everything a nice soft-glow on their shadows through a curtain or something. That might be interesting and effective as a different kind of shot. Otherwise soft soft light and when i think maternity i think white, so blow out that background? These are just my thoughts...

I've never done one so take it for what you will. Can you describe the situation a bit more, i'm not really familiar with exactly whats involved in a maternity shoot to be honest :D

[DivotDan]

Just as a follow-up to this post, I wanted to share some of the results. Thank you to those that took the time to offer suggestions in PM. They were very valuable. I'll post some new pictures over the next few days as I continue to process them. Let me know your thoughts.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3247/2445989960_964cb121a8.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/divotfilms/2445989960/)

[Lake Films]

That's a nice picture, it has a 'soft feel' to it. Did you achieve that with the lighting or in post, or both?

[HorseFilms]

That's pretty slick, man. :beer:

[DivotDan]

Thanks guys.


That's a nice picture, it has a 'soft feel' to it. Did you achieve that with the lighting or in post, or both?

A little of both. I used 2 strobes to blow out the background, as well as send soft defused light back around her sides. Then I had on strobe on a boom, slightly above her head and to the left, stopped down 1 stop, to provide fill.

Then in post, I used an awesome PS plug in called virtual photographer to add a very slight 100asa film grain effect, a little pinkish warming tone, and a slight softening.

[egproductions]

very nice lighting indeed. My only suggestion would be to add a slight (or large) vignette so that the edges of the picture aren't 255 255 255. If you want to use actual detail from the shot to create the vignette use camera raw but if you don't want to draw attention to the detail you have, or don't have any detail in your raw file, you can just do it in photoshop with a solid color. I can't get the voice out of my head from my old photography teacher saying "burn in the sky!" Again, just a suggestion.