After working for a year and a half at a family portrait studio at home and working at a similar studio since I’ve been in London it is hard to imagine the amount of living rooms that photos I’ve taken will be hanging in for years to come. The thing is though, because I have been working for companies they own the copyright to all of the images I’ve taken so I don’t get to show the amazing photos like a little girls first steps, or how amazing it is to take maternity shots of a very pregnant soon to be mother and then the very next week taking photos of the newest member to the family.
I decided recently that I needed to have some of this for my portfolio and so I started doing sessions for free for people who would not otherwise have got photography of their baby bump or bundle of joy. Why free when I know on average even at the studios I’ve worked for the average family would spend over $300 on photographs I’ve taken? Because I feel that if I don’t have anything in my portfolio to show people they wont be able to visualize what I will be able to take for them, so therefore don’t know what it’s worth. Also I’d rather do it free than setting a really low price for my building portfolio sessions and limit myself to that for in the future.
When I first spoke to Amanda she was41 weeks pregnant with her second child and so I knew we had no time to loose. My next available day I went around and started my first on Location maternity shoot. She said she felt a lot more at ease doing the photos at her own house compared to at a studio and It was great because if I got an idea for a photo, like with the sonogram photo we could easily access whatever it was that we needed.
