30 Weeks - Maternity Pictures

When I was looking through pictures of being pregnant with Claire, I realized that I didn't have any really GOOD pictures of me pregnant. Now, admittedly, back in 2008 I was working with a MUCH different camera - a point-and-shoot instead of my current DSLR. But I still wish that I had some better pictures of me pregnant with Claire instead of the only ones being snapshots from some other event or my occasional look how big my belly has gotten pictures. I really wanted to get some good pictures this pregnancy; I wanted some profesional-ish maternity pictures.


But since I am decent with my camera and cheap, I couldn't bring myself to PAY someone else to take maternity pictures of me. I probably could've asked my dad or my mom to help me out, they both know how to work my camera - particularly my dad since he's had his DSLR longer than I've had mine and was big into photography way back when I was little. But I would've felt silly. So I decided I would just take myself, and my camera, and my dad's tripod out to a park and set up a little photo-shot alone.

My camera has a timer, so the hardest part is getting the focus right. My portrait lens (Canon 50mm f/1.8) is a little persnickety about its focus. In fact, I attempted to take some family pictures for our Christmas cards about a week ago and the focus was all over the place. I really need something that I can focus on while I set up the shot and then move when I run into place. But I didn't plan far enough ahead which is why all my best shots ended up with me leaning on something (or near something) that I used for focus (a tree, a bridge, a bench). The one where I'm not leaning on something, I focused on a tree, changed it to manual focus to keep that setting and then counted the steps from my camera to the focus point. Then I turned my camera a different direction and counted the same number of steps to where I stood for the picture.


Now I have some good pictures of me pregnant. And I have a little bit more experience with my lens and getting it to focus where I want it to focus. And some more practice running to get in the picture, which is getting harder and harder the more pregnant I get! The only standard maternity pose that I tried and failed at getting involved sitting cross-legged in the grass...I probably could've done it once I thought of the focusing & counting and then moving the camera, but getting down into a cross-legged position was too hard. Not to mention how hard it was to get back up just to see the results and then having to repeat so that I was sure I would end up with a good one.