What an honour it was to be asked to photograph Bethan during her first pregnancy.
When I got the call from Bethan, I was so excited! Finally, there was someone who was inspired and looking for a creative maternity shoot!
Bethan is the epitome of my ideal client, she is happy, positive, hardworking, driven, organised, passionate and creative.
She had a clear idea of her favourite shots, thanks to research on pinterest and sent over images of her home so I could get an idea for the light opportunities. After a few phone calls and excited whattaps, the day came. When I met her, it was like I had known her for a lifetime. I am a very open person and feel that for someone to invite me to their home and photograph them at such a poignant time in their life, immediately makes them family to me. I got to meet her lovely mum who was bursting with pride for her beautiful brave daughter. Such a lovely moment was shared between them over a brew in the kitchen. The shoot was such a pleasure, we laughed, we looked forward to the future baby and chatted about how her life would be changing.
Natural light is always my preferred choice and it created a much more natural experience. It is softer and I love the shadows created where it could not reach. The changing light however, was at times a challenge but Bethan and her mum were graceful and calm and we simply took our time. The results were breathtaking and the experience has made me look forward to more opportunities like this in the future.
You have heard from me, how lets see some of these beautiful images and hear from Bethan on how the experience felt and how the shoot impacted her confidence….
Bethan’s thoughts…..
“I was looking for the right photographer to capture boudoir style images of me during my final weeks of pregnancy with my first child. I had researched extensively for weeks and struggled to find photographers that had both the style I wanted and would come to my house.
I’d been given Sarah’s details by a friend, I checked out her website and knew immediately her style was exactly what I wanted. I had already researched the type of shots I wanted to capture and loved the fact that Sarah uses natural light only and comes to your home rather than working from a studio.
When I first contacted Sarah, I was even more convinced she was the right photographer for me. She liked the shots I’d found and agreed with the potential locations around my house so we went ahead and arranged the details for my 38th week of pregnancy…….
On the day of the shoot when Sarah arrived, I already felt like I knew her because we’d been in touch several times before the day. We grabbed a brew and had an initial chat, I showed her around the house and Sarah set up the first shot.
During the whole process Sarah made me feel really comfortable, this was somewhat easier as I was in my own home, but I was still in front of a camera, posing in next to nothing and towards the end, fully naked. Sarah had an amazing way of directing without really seeming to, she’s very softly spoken and encouraging. She also captured the shots we needed really quickly which was an unexpected bonus because I soon learned that holding yourself in a certain position at 38 weeks pregnant wasn’t easy!
We were both super happy with the shoot and had such a fun day together. Sarah then surprised me 2 days later with a teaser image which was absolutely gorgeous and exactly what I wanted!
Sarah then set me up with a private login to an area on her website which held all my images to choose from. I have to say I was blown away by the shots and have never seen myself looking so beautiful. My partner and I then spent the next week struggling to narrow down the chosen images because they were all so good!
I really couldn’t recommend Sarah’s service highly enough. She is amazingly talented, has such a creative eye for detail and an easy going, personable manner which puts you at ease immediately. The shots produced were exactly what I wanted and quickly finalised too!
….capture the magic of these changes ….
When you’re pregnant, your body isn’t your own. It can be hard to adjust to it changing so dramatically and view those changes as part of the journey to motherhood. I initially found the changes difficult to deal with because I’ve always had to watch my weight and been careful with what I ate. Then my body expanded to accommodate the creation of life, it was monumentally beautiful but also terrifying and there were days when I loved my new shape and days when I struggled with it. However I knew that I wanted to capture the magic of these changes at their fullest and so chose to do the photoshoot towards the end of my pregnancy. I’m so glad I did because now being postpartum it’s also hard to adjust to my new figure: the extra weight, stretch marks and saggy ‘mum tum’ but when I think about what my body has been through to create and deliver my baby and when I look back over the images of myself carrying her, it fills me with an overwhelming sense of love and pride and joy, because my body performed a miracle and I can treasure the images of that time forever.
