Hi mommas!
Pregnancy is such an exciting time! And the photos you take during these months will be the same ones you show your son or daughter one day. So why not make them count?!
I started taking weekly photos as soon as I found out I was expecting. I was four weeks along and so so so excited. It didn't matter that I wasn't "showing" yet. I jumped right into weekly photos and never looked back!
It took a little creativity, but I was able to shoot my weekly bump photos by myself without a single bathroom mirror in sight. I did it - and you can, too. Here's how:
- Choose an outfit. Select a single outfit that you can wear throughout your entire pregnancy. It makes it easier to track your bump as it grows and takes the guess work out of what to wear each week. My pick? A white Liz Lange for Target maternity tank and everyday grey leggings. Simple and comfy.
- Choose a pose. Just like my outfit, I stuck with one pose rather than switching it up every week. I like the one-hand-on-your-hip-the-other-on-your-belly stance for a nice skinny arm effect. Ha!
- Choose a location. If possible, use a blank stretch of white wall. We moved halfway through my pregnancy and sticking to a white wall made it MUCH easier to recreate the scene at a second location.
- Be consistent. Take your photos on the same day each week and around the same time. I always took mine on Fridays in the A.M. :)
- Set up your camera. If you have professional photography equipment, great! If not, don't stress. I didn't have a fancy camera (or camera stand) when I was pregnant. I was using a good old iPhone6! And my husband is a terrible photographer (sorry, babe!) so I knew I couldn't count on him to help. Instead, I propped my phone in a bowl on the counter, aimed it at the wall, then set the timer to give me time to get in position. Sounds crazy, right? But it worked!
- Do some test shots. Once everything is in place, try a few test photos. Are you standing in the right position? Does your hair look good? Are your clothes bunched up? Make adjustments before you take the final photo. Also, try to position yourself using the Rule of Thirds. In other words, you don't want to be in the exact center of the photo.
- Get creative (if you want). I've seen so many cute ideas out there, like using letter boards or chalk boards to track pregnancy cravings. So sweet! While I love those ideas, I kept a video journal throughout my pregnancy to keep track of the little details so I didn't necessarily want to include them in my photos. But I did do something a little creative ... When I was 30 weeks pregnant, I posed with my husband for my weekly photo. For every other photo, I posed alone. But I planned all along to use THIS particular photo to announce the pregnancy on social media and I wanted my husband to be a part of it. If you're wondering what I did with all the photos I took before week 30, they were just for me and my immediate family :)
- Crop and edit. Most phones have capable photo editors these days. My favorite (free) editing tool, though, is Instagram! I used it to crop all my photos and also added the Moon filter which gives you a soft black-and-white effect.
- Choose what you want to share. I'm super selective with my social media posts. In my experience, a single striking photo gets a lot more "likes" than dozens of posts featuring similar content. So while you could post every photo, you could also space it out to once a month or once a trimester. I only posted two pregnancy photos - one announcing I was pregnant (at 30 weeks) and one just before I gave birth (at 38 weeks, pictured below). With that being said, do what works best for YOU. This is your pregnancy!
Well, that's all I've got for today!
Are you going to try some these tips at home? If so, I'd love to see the final photos or projects ... a mini flip book, maybe? Whatever you do, have fun and don't forget to share them using #laceandlubump!
Good luck momma!
Lace