Maternity shoot with Louise Mallan Photography

by Bex

As I mentioned, I recently had the pleasure of being photographed by Louise on a maternity photo shoot.  Although I have another bump shoot booked, I was thrilled to have a chance to get some more photos of me and bump in our flat and in our local park which also gave Louise a chance to do some maternity shots outside as she'd only done studio bump shoots previously.  Nik thinks I'm being a bit excessive with multiple photo shoots but given how we never thought we'd get pregnant, I want to make the most of this time and record it in as many ways possible, including photos other than my mirror bump selfies!  It also means that I get to experience maternity shoots with different photographers with different styles, giving different results - and I do love variety!  (As it happens, having now had my second shoot, both also had very different weather which I'm sure means even more varied results!)

Louise, her assistant and I started off at the flat and took a few pictures in the living room.  As I said in my sneaky peek post yesterday, I love this one of me peeking from behind the door...

We also got a lovely silhouette shot in front of the window and some bare bump shots which I would have felt uncomfortable doing in public.

Luckily the weather was on our side and when we headed to Maxwell Park it was a beautiful sunny evening throwing up plenty of opportunity for dappled light and pretty sun flares!  It's only half a mile from here and is a special place to us as we got married at Pollokshields Burgh Hall which is on the edge of the park.

As a photographer myself (albeit rubbish at portraits!), I recognised the telltale signs of a passionate photographer - thrilled about good light, yelps of delight when checking photos on the back of the camera and general excitement to get editing the images!  It was so much fun and utterly reassuring to know that Louise was enjoying the shoot as much as I was and is clearly enthusiastic about taking great photos.

I particularly love the ones taken in the alley of trees (somewhere I wish we'd had photos taken on our wedding day, luckily our videographer did capture it but I never really had that one photo of Nik and I that I loved enough blow up in a big frame, unfortunately he was working nights when we did this shoot).

My cheesy heart hands need work, it's a bit triangular!  ;)

After a quick outfit/accessory change and a thrown up hair-do we tried a few more locations around the park in the last of the evening light.

Leaning against our wedding venue :)

This shoot will always remind me of a time when I am blissfully happy, wandering around our wedding park in the sunshine, focussing on our (rapidly) growing babies inside me.  I love that I feel them SO often now (particularly baby boy who loves to poke/kick me in the side frequently) and my bump is well and truly obvious!  I am utterly loving this stage of pregnancy, I'm so glad I'm getting to experience it!  :)

Louise was lovely to work with and happy to try out some of my own ideas (the problem with me being so obsessed with Pinterest!) along with having plenty herself.  We got such a great variety of shots, I found it hard to pick favourites to share here!  I'd certainly be interested in her newborn package if we weren't moving so far away!!

If you're interested in booking a portrait session with Louise, details can be found on her website, Louise Mallan Photography.  A maternity shoot isn't listed but costs £100 for an outdoor shoot or £150 in the studio for up to 2 hours and includes two 8x10" prints of your choice with the option to buy more prints from your own password protected online gallery.  She also offers the optional extra of including a USB of images for £100.

I received a maternity photo shoot free of charge in exchange for this blog post.