Maternity Photos With Your Partner

Nearly every maternity enquiry I get comes from one person, and somewhere around the second message there's a line like this: my partner will come, but he's hopeless in front of a camera.

I love that line, because it means he's coming, and it tells me exactly where to start.

Most of the couple maternity photoshoot ideas I use are built for the person who'd rather be holding the camera than standing in front of one.

Bringing your partner into a Sydney maternity photography session changes what the pictures are about. On your own they're about your body in this season of it, and together they're about the 2 of you in the last quiet weeks before everything shifts.

What changes when your partner is in the frame

Something settles in a woman's face when the person she loves is touching her, and I've stopped trying to direct it, because it arrives on its own.

You can see it in a shoulder dropping, a chin tilting a few degrees, a breath going all the way out.

That's why I ask about partners early. A hand at your waist does more for your face than anything I could say from behind the camera.

Making it easy for a camera-shy partner

The first 10 minutes are a warm-up and I say so out loud, so nobody is standing there waiting for the real thing to begin.

I get you both walking, and I ask about the drive over, about work, about the names you've been trading back and forth all month.

Then I give your partner a job. Hold her hip. Put your hand here, under the bump, and take some of the weight.

A job answers the only question anyone actually has, which is what to do with their hands.

Almost nothing in the first half of a session asks your partner to look at me. Backs to the camera, eyes closed, faces turned in towards each other, so by the time I ask for a look down the lens it's a small thing.

Most of these sessions run in the last hour of light close to home, since I'm a Hills District photographer, and that hour makes everybody braver.

Couple maternity photoshoot ideas that start with hands

Hands are where I begin with everybody, because hands are honest and because they're easy to give instructions to.

Your hands cradling underneath, theirs resting over the top of yours. Their hands alone, holding the weight from behind, while yours stay free.

A palm flat between your shoulder blades. A thumb moving slowly across your knuckles. Fingers laced, then loose, then laced again.

Slow movement keeps a hand alive, so I ask for movement rather than a position, and I take the frames in between.

Foreheads, and the space between you

Foreheads together is the most reliable thing I know.

It closes your eyes for you, it brings your faces to the same height, and it makes a small private room out of a wide open park.

From there I ask you to breathe out, and then to talk to each other about something completely ordinary.

The talking is the part that works. A whispered sentence, a laugh at the end of it, a nose against a cheek, and the picture makes itself.

Of all the maternity photos with your partner that end up framed on a wall, these are the ones I see most often.

Using the height difference between you

If your partner is taller, the easiest shape in the world is you standing in front with your back against their chest and their chin resting on your head.

Their arms come around and under the bump, both of you end up looking the same way, and facing the same direction is far easier than facing a camera.

If you're close in height, turn side on and let your temples or foreheads meet.

If your partner is shorter, sit down. A kitchen chair, a front step, the end of the bed, with them kneeling in front of you, hands and ear against the bump.

Prompts that create movement instead of poses

Walk towards me holding hands, stop halfway, and tell each other something.

Dance without music in your kitchen, badly, until one of you laughs.

Ask your partner to say out loud what they think this baby will look like, and to be specific about it.

Prompts like these give you something to do with each other rather than something to perform for me, and many carry across from ordinary couple photoshoot ideas, because a maternity session is a couples session with somebody new on the way.

The couple maternity photoshoot ideas that work hardest are the ones that hand you an action and let the expression follow.

Dressing as a pair

I've written a longer guide on what to wear, and for 2 people the short version is one palette and 2 textures.

Soft neutrals sit beautifully together: cream, oatmeal, warm grey, a deep olive if you want something with a bit more weight to it.

A plain shirt with the sleeves rolled up works next to a long dress, and bare feet on both of you keeps the whole thing tender rather than formal.

Fitted fabric across the bump photographs better than loose, and your partner looks most like themselves in whatever they already wear on a Sunday.

The one your child will look at

The person most likely to sit with these images in 20 years is the child who's in them without being born yet.

They'll look at the way the 2 of you stood, at whose hand was where, and they'll understand something about how they were waited for.

At the end of a session I ask you to walk away from me, hands together, and then I stop giving instructions altogether.

That walk is almost always the frame that gets printed the largest.