Maternity Photography, Hertfordshire: Your baby is coming regardless of Covid 19!

Well, the last few months have certainly been incredibly difficult for the entire world. Every sector, every industry, every job, every life style, any person from any background has been impacted by this disease. And whilst research findings are coming in slow with regards to contagion and contamination, pregnant women have needed to take the same precautions that any other medically vulnerable person has had to take. And that is: stay at home, self-isolate, only go out when necessary… well until recently as restrictions have started to ease.

And this is precisely what I’d like to write about today: my first maternity session since lockdown back in March.

You already know how utterly committed to documentary photography I am. My passion to highlight the banal, the ordinary, the everyday routines spreads across every service that I like to offer. From wedding photography, to indeed birth photography or even photographing christenings! Making candid photographs of a woman in her third trimester though is such a privilege. Being in your later months of pregnancy can be an everyday battle for some and a gentler experience for others. But what we all know as women is that our bodies change to such an extent that every day movements become mini-marathons in themselves.

And that is why I feel that my documentary style for a maternity shoot is THE approach to take when capturing such a remarkable period of your life. Some of you may not feel beautiful right now and you may think that a more traditional approach to photographing your bump with the help of photoshop might be better suited. Please re-think this.

Imagine a world without photoshop, without those perfect images of perfect looking people with perfect clothes and perfect facial expressions. Imagine a world without that. How much happier would we be? How much happier would we be just accepting who we are, and actually not just accepting it but celebrating it. Finding beauty in the what is actually exceptionally beautiful.

To be fair, if you are reading this and you have found this blog post, you are probably someone who already likes to celebrate the ordinary and who is not fussed about insta-perfection. Hopefully, you actually are already of the mind that today’s mental health issues are being exacerbated on a daily, hourly basis because of the “perfect” vision so many of us want for ourselves. So I know that by sharing the following photographs with you, you see what I see… real. Real life. Real hugs. Real aches and pains. Real feelings. Real situations. Yes most of them are happy ones. But none of these were engineered. And I know that for this gorgeous mum, dad and brothers, they will be able to look back in years to come to these moments and remember not how they looked but how they felt.

And that is what documentary photography is all about. I want to help you remember how you felt.

This lovely little family, with one more little man due on the 10th July, hired me to cover the next 12 months of their lives. I offer “First Breath to First Step” package which normally includes the birth itself, but with the current circumstances, this isn’t possible. Many home births are happening and I am told by Birth Photographers UK that the presence of a photographer in the home is very much up to mum, dad and the medical advice they are given at the time. However, on this occasion, as baby is arriving by C Section, there was no way I could attend, and this I have re-formulated the package to reflect my client’s needs over the course of the year. Please also visit the Covid 19 page on my website to see how I manage the current health and safety risks.

This is their first session out of the 6 I will do in the next 12 months, documenting their family life from before the arrival of their last (well that’s the plan anyway!) child to their first birthday party. I can’t wait to document the dynamics between the family members as baby arrives, but particularly between the brothers. Part of the package is the production of a film with audio clips that I collect throughout the year: giggles, arguments, meal times. And all of these evolve so quickly. So let’s look forward to July 2021 and I can show you yet another film of a beautifully ordinary family who just want to invest in celebrating just that - their beautiful ordinary.

And if a year’s coverage sounds far too much for you, my packages start at £290 for a mini 2 hour session, including all high res images and a box of prints. Please refer to my family packages for more information.

Here is also the associated slideshow that this family got with their shoot and that is included in all my packages. My biggest passion is story-telling. So hiring me isn’t just about asking for a photographer to come and take a few photos you can add to your walls or family albums, hiring me enables you to have your story told, your extraordinary ordinary celebrated.