Deer Lake Park Maternity Session | Colin + Vicki
WARNING! This is sort of a philosophical post! ^_^ Bare with me while I grow, I’ve made a profound self-discovery.
To be honest I don’t shoot too many maternity portraits anymore, save for a few select past clients and people who I just absolutely adore. I have to admit though, I actually still do enjoy maternity and family portraits.
I think the reason I actually stopped shooting them was because I found that people we’re hesitant to really connect in front of the camera and instead wanted these traditional run of the mill portraits that I had no interest in shooting. When I do shoot them now I feel a bit like I have to explain that it’s not how I shoot, but for the most part the types of clients who generally approach me for portraits outside of weddings usually already know that.
It recently occurred to me that the thing I long to shoot most of all is intimacy, and the reason that I really enjoy shooting intimacy is because I myself really enjoy intimacy. I love to be kissed and held and snuggled. I could spend forever in quiet moments with my little girl curled up on my lap. I even like to snuggle with my dog. I enjoy human touch. I love inside jokes. My favourite books are those where I connect with a character on an intimate level, and it’s what I am to show in my work. It has not been an easy transition to intimacy. Intimacy is a scary thing, because it requires letting down walls, and opening your heart and being open to rejection. I’m reading The War of Art by Stephen Pressfield at the moment, and in it he describes the fear of rejection as a biochemical reaction. He says that we hate the idea of rejection on a primal level, because essentially as cavemen if we were rejected by our tribe it would have meant starvation or death. There is safety in numbers. When you put yourself out there at risk of being rejected the worst that can happen is that you are cast off and are forced into isolation (emotionally or mentally speaking). It’s a scary thing.
As I shot this session I thought a lot about why I agreed to do it, not because I didn’t want to, rather the opposite. I realized it was because I could really connect with Vicki on an intimate level. Not only had we met in several instances earlier (We shot her brother’s wedding a few years back, and had attended her own wedding with our photobooth) but on a much more personal and intimate level, Vicki had openly discussed her own fears and challenges with pregnancy and they had been my own as well. We had both worried about our changing bodies, and struggled with pain and memory loss, and had been given the rude awakening that pregnancy is not all rainbows and unicorns. We both feared flabby arms and bellies and double chins, and I think because all of that was out in the open we just felt a lot more connected as people.
This past Tuesday I spent the evening with my dear friend and fellow artist Daphne Chan, who reminded me of something profound. There is what we do, and what we really do. What I do is take pictures of people. What I really do is offer people acceptance, love, and intimacy. I offer a chance to be loved, to be intimate and to be accepted without judgement. I allow people to love, and grow, and change in their own way, and I just accept it.
Acceptance. Love. Intimacy. We all need those things. We all need a lot more of those things than we like to think. I think for the first time ever I really understand what it means to create and give art. I think for the first time I understand why it is so important to do what I do. We don’t always remember the things people do or say, but we always remember how people made us FEEL. Intimate portraiture not only is a link to our past, but a link to moments in time in which we felt really good. They are moments when we were loved, accepted, literally brimming with life and love and joy and happiness.
I won’t spend all day going on about it, though I could. So here is an intimate maternity portrait session with Colin and Vicki:
