Faye's Maternity Photo Session

Jason and his wife, Faye, are expecting their first baby soon! Jason is a fellow RN and coworker who had asked me to take maternity photos of his wife during her third trimester. Faye expressed that she would want to shoot at Fort Point and Palace of Fine Arts (actually, her ideal location would be Lake Tahoe for a winter themed maternity shoot, but we'll get back to that later). Knowing that those spots can get crowded during the weekends, I scouted for a backup location as well. A week prior to the shoot, I went to these spots to plan my shots and track where in the sky the sun would be close to sunset using an A.R. app. As for the backup location, I found a place close to work that I know would not be as crowded during the weekend, but would still provide wonderful woodland views and a peek of the Golden Gate Bridge: Lands End.

Faye had also planned to wear three different maternity dresses which could be accommodated within the time allotted for this photo shoot (it also helped that Faye and Jason are so good at finding ways to do outfit changes quickly anywhere they may be).

At the day of the shoot, Faye and Jason visited Fort Point and the Palace of Fine Arts hours prior and realized that the crowds in those places would not provide ideal and/or safe photo shoot conditions...so they decided to go for my backup location at Lands End. The place had relatively less people in it that allowed us to more than adequately social distance. It also allowed us to signal Jason and Faye to wear their masks whenever we saw people approaching.

We started the photo shoot with Faye in her black maternity dress with a very long train. For some of her solos, I had asked Jason to throw the dress' train in the air on cue so I could capture it on photo as if it's being blown by the wind. The warm-colored light from the low sun and the earth tones in the tree trunks in the background provided for the perfect warm color palette that complemented Faye's black dress.

Faye's second outfit is a red maternity dress. I thought the red would look so great in a setting with greens and browns in it. Jason also changed into an outfit that would complement Faye's.

Faye's third outfit is a white maternity dress that allowed for a lot of versatility as far as choice of backgrounds...as white simply almost always goes well with any background color. Faye also wore a flower crown to go with the white maternity dress which instantly made me think of a word: ethereal! So for this dress, I aimed to capture photos imagining Faye as a beautiful nymph in nature.

Lands End also provides majestic views of the Golden Gate Bridge from a distance. This allowed me to capture the entire stretch of the bridge as a background for some of the photos.

Ethereal!

Towards the end of the shoot at Lands End, the thought of how disappointing it might had been for Faye to not be able to shoot at the Palace of Fine Arts had been nagging at me. At that point, I told Faye and Jason that we should drive to the Palace of Fine Arts and see if the crowd has lessened, which would make it possible for us to capture a few photos quickly. I had instructed Faye to change back into the her black maternity dress on their way to the Palace of Fine Arts. When we got there, we hurriedly shot a few photos.

Lastly, remember when I mentioned earlier that Faye's ideal photo shoot location was Lake Tahoe to take winter themed photos at? Since we cannot make that trip, I thought I would surprise Faye with a winter edit of one of her nymph photos. It's not Lake Tahoe but it could be the next best thing.