Seattle Fine-Art Maternity Photography - August Mother of the Month - Alex
Meet Alex, our August Mother of the Month! I recently had the pleasure of doing a fine-art maternity photography session with Alex and her husband. My process is to meet the clients a few weeks before the session to get to know them as well as to help me start to envision an image for them and Alex and I really connected.
Tell me a little bit about yourself, your partner and how you met. Why you decided to have kids. Was it an easy process?
Dan and I both grew up in Minnesota but met in college in Boston. We were friends all through college and both lived in Colorado for a year, meeting up on occasion to go skiing. 8 years after we met, Dan was moving from Seattle to Orange County to get his Ph.D. When he told me of his plans to road trip the coast down, I instantly asked if I could come. Having never spent more than a day hanging out, it was decidedly a bit impulsive, but I’d always wanted to do that road trip. Three days into our trip, while camping near Cape Alava on the Olympic Peninsula, we fell in love. Within a few days, it was clear all our plans weren’t as important anymore now that we were together. My plans to move to Thailand after our roadtrip? Canceled. His Ph.D program? Canceled. That was the beginning of our adventure together and it hasn’t slowed down since. Like many of our adventures, I came up with the crazy idea of having children and it took Dan a little longer to get on board. However, once he did (as always) it was with his whole heart and we can’t wait for what is sure to be our greatest adventure yet!
2. What is your secret to a good relationship? OR what is your secret to happiness?
What has really set our relationship apart from others is that neither of us tries to restrict or contain the other. Often, I have found myself in relationships where the other person, at times, dampens my energy, wants to take my energy, or resents my energy. This has never been the case with Dan. We have discussed from the beginning that we want to help each other be our best selves. We recognize and respect that we are two unique individuals in a partnership.
3. Tell me about why you decided to have professional fine-art maternity photography, and why you trusted me to take these special photos.
Having a child and becoming a family is a massive change that we can’t yet fully understand. Knowing this, we wanted to capture this time of transition. Having some photos of us at the end of the pregnancy is a way to honor this choice, to have something that shows the physical evolution that’s taken place. When I show people my photos they always ask, “how did you find your photographer?” To be honest, I simply googled ‘Seattle Pregnancy Photographer.’ When I spoke with Jennifer for the first time, I felt like she had good vibes and I liked her take on photography. It was nice to meet before the shoot and see the space and talk about what I was looking for and how she worked. I was pretty apprehensive about having my partner in the photos because I didn’t know how he would respond to getting naked and being so intimate in front of a stranger, but I knew I felt comfortable with her so I trusted that he would as well.
4. Tell me what the experience was like to work with me, and anything special that you came away with or learned? Anything that I did that made this a special experience? Or anything that was different working with me?
On the day of the shoot, I felt liberated by how comfortable I felt being completely nude in front of someone I had just recently met. The photos didn’t seem staged and rehearsed, we just kind of moved around and chatted and it felt very natural. When Dan arrived, I was in a really great space and he just jumped right in. In the end, the photos of the two of us were my favorites of the entire shoot! I liked that Jennifer encouraged Dan to be there and she was able to make us feel so comfortable and able to just be ourselves. You really see that come through in the photos she took. To see more featured women, please visit Mother of the Month.