Maternity Photos with Marie & Justinas

Justinas and Marie are two of my oldest friends in Atlanta. I have know them since the days when riding motorcycles in the north Georgia mountains was a weekly event. We spent many a mile together and had some great adventures. It was wonderful when they got married and then pregnant later on.

Justinas and his brother, Paulius, are photographers just like their father back in Lithuania. The love of photography is something that we all have in common. Justinas was making a movie of the shoot.

I was honored to be able to take some of these photos of Marie, but I wanted to include Justinas in some too. He is always behind the camera so this time, the roles would be reversed for him. I also thought it would be important to show them as a couple. I love the negative space between them in the next photo.

We decided to meet at my office where we could take advantage of an open studio and also the last remaining Fall foliage outside. Many trees had already lost their vibrancy at this point, but I put my secret weapon to good use... I simply call it the THE TREE. This one always has incredible color.

My favorite tree in Atlanta still had a little Fall color left... but only if the sun hit it just right. The same tree is in the background of the image above and below. The only difference is that sun peeked out for a few brief moments on the latter one. I call this "boom pow" because this kind of color knocks me out.

Pretty soon the evening light was toast so we headed indoors to try a few different scenarios. The first was to photograph Marie against a painted blue wall using a ring flash. If you have never seen one of those, it would look similar to sticking your camera lens through the hole of a large doughnut shaped flash. It creates a signature ring highlight in the eyes and a soft shadow around a subject who is in close proximity to a wall. This look is not for everyone, but Marie pulls it off.

Then I wanted to try some dark background portraits with strong directional light. We used a sheer mesh here.

I wanted a very strong rim light to help define her against the dark background.

She then changed into something a little less comfortable. How she wrapped herself in this thing is a mystery, but I think I saw her twirling into it while Justinas held the end.

This is one of my favorites because of the modeling on that perfect belly, and the expectant look of motherhood. She will make an incredible mom.