My DIY Maternity Shoot

For all my love of taking photos, I never had a maternity shoot done for any of my pregnancies. I guess I just didn't feel the need then, or wanted to just invest in having a pictorial done after I gave birth with the babies.

But with this pregnancy, I finally felt like I wanted to have one. Maybe it's the thought that this could probably be my last one (well, you never know down the road hehe...). And also because I think I look good this last trimester haha (thankfully, I haven't gained that much weight and no swelling/manas so far yey!). I guess I just want to document this time in my life while I'm in the middle of all this pregnancy glow. :)

I inquired on the rates of several photographers/studios and I guess it's obvious that they don't come cheap. The one I really wanted cost P8,500 but they were based really far away from us, so it was a extra P1,500 if I wanted to do the shoot near our place. P10k is definitely a lot of money, but you can justify it as being an investment just like your wedding photos right? But then I was thinking, for sure we were going to do another shoot with the baby after I gave birth. So that was another P10k down the line (I think even more for newborn shoots these days!)...

After thinking hard about it, I decided why not do a trial pictorial first on my own and see how it would turn out. My sister was taking up multi-media arts in school and had a DSLR camera so she could take my pics. I also knew the exact look I wanted so I just searched for pegs and poses I could copy online. Our village park was the perfect location since I wanted to do the shoot outdoors. I did my own hair & make-up, wore a dress I've had for ages (trivia: I also wore this dress in my pre-nup pictorial 5 years ago!), and just made my own floral crown too (DIY tutorial to follow soon).

Anyway, side kwento first. My sister was supposed to take my pics but we had a huge fight right before so I almost called the whole thing off. Good thing my mom was there and we had no choice but to just use my regular Lumix camera. I just showed her the pegs I wanted and told her to just snap away... bahala na si Batman!

Needless to say, the photos turned out GREAT! Considering my mom has no photography skills and has bad eyesight, she took really good shots! I just cropped and edited the pics using photoshop and couldn't be happier with the results. Especially when I think about all that money I've saved hehe. :)

Anyway, here's my favorite photos from my DIY shoot. What do you think? Para bang pang professional na? ;p