Hi everyone , welcome to this week's episode of Clued Up , the behind the scenes photography podcast .
You know , when I started this podcast , the original goal , one of the primary goals , was to , of course , take you behind the scenes and familiarize you with all the things that have to go on in order to make a productive , well-organized , less stressful photo shoot , and I know we've covered a number of topics all related to that goal , but every once in a
while I like to take you with me on the journey of planning a photo shoot , and today's one of those episodes . Stay tuned . Welcome to Clued Up with Maria B , the behind the scenes photography podcast . Clued Up is your insider's view to building successful magazine style photo shoots .
We talk design and concept , fashion and style , tech , social media and , of course , business , plus so much more , including how to avoid common photography pitfalls . You'll also meet some special guests who work behind the camera and in front of the lens .
Whether you're an aspiring photographer , a portrait photographer , thinking about starting your own business , or you just have an interest in what it takes to plan and execute professional shoots , you've come to the right place . I'm your host , maria B . Now let's get you Clued Up . So I'd like to start with the backstory as to how this shoot came about .
In the beginning of 2020 , someone who I work with very nice woman , young woman , she's a physical therapist she asked me to do a maternity shoot for a friend of hers . I was gifting this to her friend and at that time I had not done a maternity shoot .
I was I wouldn't say I was new to doing portraits , but I didn't have the handle on it that I have now . I didn't have a studio . I had equipment . I had , you know , soft boxes , umbrellas , I had speed lights . I had . I had a strobe it was pretty big strobe to take on location , but I did .
But even before that , when she asked me to do this , I hesitated . Actually , I more than hesitated , I kind of turned her down . You know , thank you for the offer , but I don't think I'm there yet and she absolutely refused to take no for an answer and she's one of those people where just given because she's never giving up the fight .
So I agreed and at that time I had watched some videos on maternity shoots , doing maternity shoots and I wouldn't say I necessarily , again , had a handle on it . But she convinced me that I had the ability and so we made the arrangements . I did the shoot .
I actually did it in the woman's home , which is in I believe it was Fort Lee , which is right across the water from New York City , and her , she , lived in this high rise apartment complex . So , you know , you had these beautiful views of New York City in the background and I brought along a V flat and so we , we really made a go of it .
Unfortunately , a couple of weeks after we did the shoot we went into lockdown so I never had the opportunity to go back and sit with her to go through her photos and we knew it would be a long time before we got together . And you know , with her pregnancy , who in the right mind would take a chance on letting a relative stranger into their home ?
So I essentially gave the digital to her . You know , during that time we were all doing things that were kind of ordinary out of the ordinary . So I gladly gave her the digital and she loved the phone . So I gladly gave her the digital and she loved the photos . She really did .
She loved them so much that I think a year later , when she and her fiance decided to finally get married , they asked me to do the wedding photos and that I did turn down because I had not ever photographed a wedding , and even though it would just be the two of them , his family , their family , just you know , immediate family , probably less than I don't
know , eight people or so , I still wasn't comfortable . In retrospect I should have done it , but decision was made and I stuck to it . Anyway , all that to say what ? Three years later , the woman who asked me to do the photo shoot , the woman who gifted the photo shoot to her friend , has gotten married and she is now having a baby .
And she , she texted me the other day , or she DMs me the other day and asked me to do her maternity shoot , and she was like it was never in question that you weren't going to do it , I just haven't had the chance to reach out to you . So that's the backstory of how this came to be .
So now I'm going to kind of take you through the steps , rather casually , of planning this , and I cannot emphasize the importance of planning and planning well . So what you're planning for is something that's really important to someone and , as much as possible , you want to do all the heavy lifting . You want this to go as smoothly as possible for them .
You want them to totally enjoy the experience . So among her first questions to me , like all clients , is what was my cost ? And I went over that with her . I gave her the cost of my session fee , which in my case is $200 , and the important thing to know about this is much the way she had gifted a maternity shoot to a friend of hers .
A friend of this woman I'm gonna call her Carol , just to make it easier from now on . A friend of Carol wanted to gift a maternity shoot to her , so once Carol reached out to me and asked me the cost , she then provided the information for her friend who was actually paying for it , and I told her I needed care .
I needed her friends Email address , phone number , just the , the contact info that I need to put into my client relations management software , just so I could begin organizing things . I sent a brochure to Carol just to let her know that these are my print products that are available after the photo shoot . So the long and short of it is after the shoot .
When she comes back and she decides on the photos that she wants , she gets to choose whether she wants wall art or an album or those sorts of things , and I'll talk more about that in a moment .
So once we established that , yes , we are going to do this , we are going to do this in maternity shoot , then we went into some immediate planning as far as narrowing down a date and a time and , of course , ensuring that I had a makeup artist who was available .
And once we had all of those things set , I Then went about drawing up the invoice and the contract for the maternity shoot . So that , of course , brings us to the business part of this . I mean all of its business , but these are really important specific points . The first thing was , of course , to create an invoice for the original session fee .
That invoice includes the details , such as the date and the time and Specific to the fact that this , the the invoice , covers the session fee and only the session fee . It does not cover prints or even digital . So that has to be clear and that's made clear in the contract that is attached to the invoice .
So I use Software or client relation management software , called studio ninja . Now there are a bunch of these different software programs , online programs that are available . There's studio ninja , there's honey book , there's 17 hats . There are a bunch of them .
The trick is to find the one that works for you , because some of them seem to be more cumbersome than others . But that's a personal thing , that's . You know , if you listen to my episode on Photography education , where I talk about , you have to find someone who's teaching methods Work specifically for you . Well , it's this .
It's kind of the same thing with this type of software you need to find the one that works for you , and I've been through a few and it took me a while to find one that really works or works for me , and studio ninja does that .
So into studio ninja I input the client , carol , the name of the person who is receiving the invoice , who is gifting her the shoot , the date of the shoot , the time of the shoot and Whatever necessary details , specifically the date the payment for the session is due , because in business , until you make a deposit , nothing is really set in stone , and I let it
be known it's in that in the invoice that once that Session fee is paid , the client is on for the day . No other client will be offered that date or time , and then it proceeds to list out the services that will be provided .
So just to give you a little bit more detail about this Into this program it's actually online software I input the client's name in this case Carol the name of the person who is the primary provider of the financial transaction , and I input that person's name , their Contact info , email and telephone number .
Obviously I do the same with Carol because , you know , should those details need to be on the documents as well . Um , so this initially presents to the client or the person paying as a quote .
It can also , as in this case , go to them as a direct invoice , and because in this case a quote was not necessary , but typically what happens is I provide a quote , I send the quote to the client . Once the client agrees with that quote , once they indicate their agreement , the quote transitions into an invoice .
On that invoice is the date that the payment is due and also the program then creates a portal for the client . So in that portal the client can find the contract , which they are obligated to read through in its entirety , because it contains specific details about copyright , about liability , about a number of different factors and it .
You know , in the future I may go into that um somewhat deeper in a separate episode , a part of an episode , but , uh , so we have the contract , we have the invoice and you can attach a survey and in this case I did . And specifically , I needed to have certain questions answered related to how far along in the pregnancy is Carol Um .
Does she expect , uh , to use a color theme or would she like a color theme throughout her photo shoot ? Does she know the gender of the baby and does that ? Is that a factor ? Does she need or want for that to be a factor in her photo shoot ? A bunch of other questions .
You can go online and just Google you know questions from eternity photo shoot and you'll get a nice long list of people who provide um . You know what they use and you just sort of tailor it to your specific use and the information that you need to provide a superior experience for your client .
You don't want to burden the client with a lot of questions , but you need to draw out specific information . So one of the questions I um included and I did it in terms of a checkbox is are they , are they okay with implied nudity , partial nudity ? Um , are they okay with showing the pregnant belly ?
You know just questions like that , so that on the day of the shoot . You're not going to take them down a road that they're uncomfortable with , if you know what I mean . So those are some points that I made sure I included . I specifically asked about um likes or dislikes of certain types of foods , if there's a particular snack that she favors .
Um , I asked about the type of music she favors , you know , and she , I think within 24 hours of sending the survey she had provided answers , all the necessary answers . Um , that really helped me in terms of knowing what will work best for her . So she told me things like , you know , blues and purples are some colors that she tends to favor .
She does know the gender of the baby , but it didn't really , she didn't really want that to play into her photo shoot , which you know . That's wonderful because I think it gives me more room to experiment with different things and different colors . She specifically told me that she wanted at least a few poses with that very light , airy , flowing material .
Um , you know that like the use of silk or silk chiffon or that type of thing . So that's something that I really enjoy doing . So I know to do that specifically with her maternity shoot . But these are all things that you know . We're not going to talk about them a week before and we're not going to talk about them the day of the photo shoot .
We're learning about all of this right now so that I can get what I need and set up appropriately for her . So once I had that back and I had an idea of what she's looking for , I went to work on reviewing maternity poses and because I hadn't done this in a while , I wanted I really wanted to refamiliarize myself with the whole process .
Now I had material from before , you know , on my computer for maternity shoots , particular poses , particular lighting , but again , it had been sometimes since I'd done a shoot like this and I wanted to begin refamiliarizing myself . So I pulled those things out and I went over them .
I also went to the website of Lola Milani , who I know I've mentioned before in some older episodes . Lola Milani is I hate to say she's the godmother of maternity photo shoots , but she really is . Her method of teaching about this is so simple and so beautiful and relaxed and you can tell she has a passion for this .
I mean , she not only does maternity , she does boudoir , she does fine nude , she does beauty , but her , her mainstay is maternity photo shoots and she does a magnificent job , and so I actually purchased one of her newer classes on doing maternity shoots and I've actually sat down and watched the entire thing already and it's actually from a workshop that she did ,
so it was all recorded live , so there wasn't as much . There was a lot of prep work , but it's not like as though it was a video production . It was a live workshop that she recorded .
So you get to see three different setups you know I think they listed three , but somehow it seems as though it's more than that and she goes over lighting and posing and everything that you would need to incorporate into your work if you are doing a maternity shoot .
In addition , you get the lighting diagrams and then you get a list of the products that she uses and really for most photographers , it's things that they already have . It's not like you've got to go out and purchase things . It's simply , it's simple . It's probably the best way to say it . It's done simply and absolutely beautifully .
And again , her website is Lola Milani Photography and then there's Lola Milani Academy for photographers , so you may just want to look there if you are interested in maternity . A touch of boudoir , fine art nude . You can't go wrong , and the price is very reasonable , particularly when there's a discount .
So , again , if this is something you're interested in , I strongly suggest that you start with Lola Milani , because you will be starting with the absolute best and so because I have the combination of what the client wants , along with having reviewed and watched new material on doing this type of photo shoot .
All of that allowed me to really begin my prep work in terms of having the things necessary to make the photos that I believe will make this client extremely happy .
So part of my prep , as I said a little while ago , is familiarizing or re familiarizing myself with things like the lighting , the appropriate lighting for maternity shoots , specifically , you know , the maternity silhouette , be it backlit or short lit or even broad lighting , just re familiarizing myself with the best way to photograph the pregnant form .
The next thing becomes what exactly will show that form in the most beautiful way If you are putting that pregnant form out there , if that is the emphasis of your photos , what types of outfits , what clothing best accentuates the pregnancy ? So that brought me to looking at , you know , the different types of materials that would do that .
Obviously , we want to go two routes with this . We want material that is light , airy , flowy , as I said before , and for that we have , like the silk charmous , silk chiffon , some of which I already have in the studio . There is a website called I think it's before and forever it .
I'll provide the link to it and they provide silk chiffon , silk charmous , either in solid colors or with graphic prints . The prices are quite reasonable . Depending on where you are , prices of fabric varies significantly .
The other thing is that you can always go to a fabric store and look in their ends department , and what fabric stores call ends could be yards upon yards of material , and that's a good place to start , particularly if you live in an area where fabric is high priced . So I'm in Northern New Jersey and I may have mentioned this before in another episode .
There are some local fabric stores where the prices are quite reasonable . In addition to the prices being reasonable , they may not have the exact type of material you're looking for . So if I there's a fabric store in the town or a few towns over over for me and I went in there one day and I said do you have silk shamosies ?
Like no , that's really , really pricey , I don't carry it , he said , but I do have such and such . I forgot the material . If you to the naked eye you can't tell the difference between the expensive silk shamosies and this material and it works just as well . So you don't always have to go with the high end product . I am across from New York City .
Mood is the fabric store of choice . They sell almost everything you can ever wish for in terms of fabric . You can walk in there and ask for any type of silk , anything and they'll have it , but you know it can be a little bit costly .
And the thing about maternity shoots if you are going for that flowy type of look , you need at least five yards of material . So that can be a lot depending on you know your budget and what your goals are in terms of the presentation of your photography , how you want this to appear .
The other look is that , that look that really emphasizes the pregnant belly , and for that there's jersey or some other type of I'm not sure if knit is the right fabric , but something that really cuts close to the body .
What I am trying to avoid and I'm not a seamstress and I don't deal in fabric that much , but you know I can figure what I want and what I don't want .
What I'm trying to avoid is putting the client into some type of a dress that makes her look bigger than she is , because she's a very tiny person and , whether you're tiny or not , it's a maternity shoot and we are emphasizing the maternity part of it . We don't need for a woman to look larger than her true size .
So , for those types of photos photos that would be , you know , either implied nude or really emphasizing nothing but the structure of the body , the pregnant body we would go for something that really sticks to the body , as opposed to something that is bigger and just flows , where it might just look like a big dress , versus emphasizing the maternity factor in the
photos . Get material that does this . I used two sources . One was Amazon , and in the case of Amazon , I simply ordered maternity dresses that were , you know , that did exactly that they emphasize the pregnant belly . I made sure that I did not order anything that had sleeves , because that would take away from just concentrating on the pregnant form .
The other place that I got material to do this with is , as I said before , mood , and what I did was I went to , I made the purchases online versus going into New York City , and I went to their discount section of their online store and I looked for the colors and the type of material that I know can really emphasize the pregnant form once it is wrapped
around the client . The client likes blues and purples , which I think I mentioned before , and you can say blue and purple , but that's a really wide range to deal with . So I went for the more jewel tone colors , both in terms of the flowy material that I talked about a little bit ago , and for the , the Jersey type material that emphasizes the pregnant form .
I also purchased from the online store before and forever , graphic printed silk material or silk chiffon material , and in my mind , I know exactly where I am going with , which is because I asked the client what her interests were as far as print products , to which she responded wall art and an album .
In my mind , I can see the progression of an album , meaning first photographing her , or at least in the presentation of the album , the photos that will come first will be the more plain type of photos in the jersey material and then working towards the more graphic , elaborate , flowy type material across , let's say , a spread . You know what I mean .
So instead of it just being one page , it'll be like a two page spread of the client in this massive silk , chiffon graphic print Because , as I said , she's told me she's interested in an album . It allows me to develop a mental picture of what that album should look like and , if all goes well , I think this will be outstanding .
I think it will be really something that she's going to love . Just a few more points . This is going to be a big production , big in terms of I don't think it's something that I can do by myself and just the client .
So supposedly her husband is going to accompany her to the photo shoot , but that's also up in the air because of working , responsive , of work responsibilities . So if he is not with her , then I'm sure our friend or I'll ask her as the date approaches If he is not able to come with her .
If a friend can certainly come along and in the interest of fairness and in the interest of you know this great occasion in their lives .
What I said to her was , if your husband does have to work , the two of you can just pop in another time and we'll do a really casual shoot and it'll be covered by the same session fee , which I think is perfectly reasonable and fair to them .
But just going back , you know this is going to be hard to do if it's just the two of us , so I'm hoping she will bring someone along if her husband cannot accompany her , and then one of my assistants one of my photography assistants is also going to help out , and my plan is simply to have everything set up by the time she arrives and have this be a
really nice Saturday that we spend doing this . I want it to be efficient because you know it's the summer , it's hot , she's pregnant , I have air conditioning in the studio , but still , my goal is not to take a ton of pictures , but just to take some high quality photos .
That crosses the span between the different colors that she loves , the different poses , the different structures of the outfits that she'll be wearing , in the hope of producing an album or wall art that she's going to treasure for the rest of her life , along with her husband and other members of her family .
So I would call this part one of talking about this photo shoot and I will continue until the end . So , whatever the next phase is , I will keep you guys up to date on that and then certainly I will let you know all of the details of how the shoot went .
It actually is not scheduled until August , the 12th , so you know there's some more intricate planning that needs to go on just to make sure that everything goes as smoothly as possible . And after we do the shoot , you know I will let you know how things went along and hopefully it'll be successful .
And you know , depending on how this goes , I may start offering maternity shoots .
I think I'm very excited to do this because , unlike the previous two shoots that I've done , I'm putting more time and energy and effort into this and I think it's like anything else If you know , if you put the work in , it's usually reflected back at you and if all goes well , I really think I may want to start offering maternity shoots .
All of the maternity shoots I've done and this will be the third or fourth , I think I've been asked to do them by people who know that I do portrait photography .
It's not as though I offered or I have it out there that I do maternity shoots , but people who know I do portraits have come to me and asked me to do their maternity shoots or have asked me to do maternity shoots for friends of theirs .
So I think , if this goes well , this may become , you know , another type of portraiture in my arsenal , and I think it'll go well . I'm optimistic , but I will let you know . All right , you guys ? Thank you so much for listening to this episode . I really appreciate it , as always , and I look forward to our next episode together .
Thank you , stay well Until next time .