Styled Maternity Shoot // Prospect House

Styled Shoot

Mar 6

This styled maternity shoot for Jen, a wedding planner who actually put the whole thing together, at Prospect House in January was a such a fun adventure.

Jen recently moved to Austin from California and I actually met her maybe 2 years ago there at the Feminist Photo Vacay where she helped style a few shoots. She got in touch when she moved to Austin and we went out for ramen (obviously). I knew we would do a shoot together but I wasn't sure what it would be yet. Then, she started pulling this shoot together and asked if I would be interested in doing a maternity-style shoot.

All cards on the table, I let her know that I'd never done any maternity photos period, ever. But she asked me to do it anyway and I'm so glad she did. She was able to get together an amazing team that I felt lucky to be part of:

When Jen was first telling me about the shoot, I was like, "We have to do it at Prospect House." We were super excited that Prospect House came on board and gave us all the time we needed.

Prospect House is one of the newer venues out in Dripping Springs. It does have a barn feeling, but it's a really modern, beautiful version of a barn that's mostly all white and silver. It almost feels like a spaceship about to take off to me-- I have no idea why, it just does.

Behind it is the area where people get married. There's a white frame overlooking a beautiful field (which you'll see below) and it is the best.

On the day of the shoot, we were able to not only get photos for the maternity styled shoot but also of a lot of the vendors either in portraits or in their element working. A lot of times in this industry, you're taking photos of your work and not necessarily of yourself.

Since I knew we would have a few extra hours to work with, I suggested that if anyone was interested we could also do photos of vendors. It was super fun and they all came out really beautifully.

For the maternity portion, we focused on a super colorful style. Muted colors and minimalism seem to be really popular and trendy in weddings right now (which I love), but we didn't want to do a shoot that would look like 500 others. It was really colorful and we focused on the 2018 Pantone color of the year, ultraviolet.

I was a little afraid that I wouldn't know what to do for the maternity photos, but I did some research beforehand and essentially just tried to do things that weren't super uncomfortable for Jen and felt natural for her. My conclusion: it's not that different from taking a portrait of a non-pregnant person. It's just about being intuitive about what they're comfortable with trying. In the end, I actually really liked doing the maternity shoot.

One of my favorite things about the day, other than how magical it was to have all these amazing vendors in one place at one time to work on this project, was the beautiful tablescape set up with cake, champagne, florals, and stationary for invites.

I finished up the photos about a week or two ago, right on Jen's due date. Jen, her partner and their baby girl are doing well. If you'd like, you can check out her thoughts on the shoot here, and make sure you scroll down to look through some of my favorite photos!