Egay: Maternity portraits

Baby Sam, who is Paco's cousin, just turned 5 months old a few days ago, but earlier this year, I first photographed her when she was still in Mommy Egay's tummy.:)

Egay (aka Niña to her family) is Pete's little sister, and has been one of my favorite models from the time I was still studying photography. She is probably my most photographed person, next to Paco.:) I usually ask her to model for me whenever I want to try something out or when I just want to practice. I've done her headshots a couple of times, did a fashion shoot with her, and even did a boudoir session with her! When I learned that she was pregnant, I knew I wanted to do her preggy shots as well.;)

Niña (sorry, I feel weird calling her Egay.:D) was a few weeks away from giving birth to Sam when we did this portrait session last January.  This was probably the shortest portrait session I have ever done. We were finished in about 30 minutes! We originally agreed to meet up at UP Diliman at around 3:30PM. But because she and hubby JC were coming from a pre-natal check-up, while Pete and I were coming all the way from Cavite, we knew none of us would make it on time. We rescheduled for 4:30PM. And then we got stuck in one of the worst traffic I have ever experienced in a long time (Ok, maybe not. I'm just not used to Metro Manila traffic anymore, since I've been living in the suburbs for years.) and I was worried we would lose the light before we got UP. We probably got there just after 5PM, and the light was perfect! We got to work at once, and we got really great shots!:)

As soon as we parked and said our quick hellos, I quickly searched for the best light. I asked Niña to stand in a spot and started shooting right away. This was one of the very first test shots I took. Framing is so-so, and the building in the background is distracting, but I really love the light. And doesn't Niña look amazing?


Same spot, just a slightly different angle. Couple of shots of the proud parents-to-be.





They brought a few props. This was part of the Christmas gift set Pete and I gave to Niña last year.:)

One of my favorites.


This was part of the decorations during the baby shower Niña's officemates threw for her.


Of course, Baby Sam had to make an appearance in some of the photos.:)


Love this.:)

 

Yep, Niña is one of those lucky ladies who look really good when pregnant. And Daddy JC isn't looking too bad either.;)

















As I said, the onesie was part of a set.;)





Last shots just as we were heading back to our cars.

Ice: Maternity portrait session

Ice and Bryan were my orgmates in college. I also shot their wedding over 4 years ago and did Ice's maternity portraits when she was pregnant with their first child. Late last year, I had the pleasure of photographing their family again, this time just before they welcomed their newest member. Baby Brei was christened just last weekend. Unfortunately, Pete and I weren't able to attend. But in honor of his becoming a new member of the Christian World, I am posting their portrait session today.

We originally scheduled the session about a week earlier in Nuvali. However, just a few days before we were supposed to do the shoot, Ice was put on bed rest by her doctor. Fortunately, she was able to recover fast and we were able to reschedule the shoot before she gave birth. We had to do the shoot at UP Diliman instead though because I had an event to shoot in Q.C. later that day.

The weather on the day of our shoot was generally overcast with some drizzle every now and then, so we didn't get to do any of the sunny photos that I always love.  However, UP Campus has a lot of nice spots to shoot in that we were still able to get great shots.

Here are some of my favorites from the session...

A couple of warm-up shots with the pretty mommy.

This was one of my favorite shots from the session.  Big sister Jem is so photogenic!


She wasn't in the mood to pose for me during the beginning of the session, but we got her to smile for this shot.


LOVE this!

As I said, it drizzled a couple of times during our shoot, so we had to take cover.  We found this little spot on the side of the UP Theater. The light there was awesome!


Ice sent me some photos that she got from the Internet that she wanted to "copy". Most of them were studio shots, but I told her we could try to do some of them and see if they work. I did like how these next two shots turned out.


Open shade could be a photographer's best friend.:)


BREI.


JEM.

One of my favorite shots of Ice.





Jem wasn't in the mood to pose anymore.





But when she was left alone with me for a few minutes, she asked me to take her picture and gamely posed for the camera. :)

She asked me to take her photo in this particular spot. :)


Last few shots.





Of course, I had to take shots of the handsome dad as well.;)

Christine: Maternity portraits

I first met Christine and hubby Joseph when I photographed their daughter Dana's 1st birthday party in 2008. Last year, I met up with them again when we had their family portrait session. Christine was a couple of  months pregnant by then and told me she wanted to do a maternity session with me. We did the session late January. And just a couple of days ago, I got a text from Christine with the happy news of the arrival of the newest member of their family! I can't wait to meet the little one as we're also planning to do a newborn portrait with Baby Darla soon.:)

Here are a few of my favorites from the session.

We had to move the pictorial at an earlier date than we originally planned because Christine felt that her tummy was already getting too big.  On the day of the pictorial, Christine and Joseph got stuck in a traffic jam, so I was getting worried that we wouldn't have enough time to take good photos (I couldn't extend the shoot as I had a party to photograph that afternoon).  While I was waiting for them at UP where we agreed to do the shoot, Christine texted to tell me not to worry. "Magaling akong mag-pose," she joked.  But when we started shooting, I realized she wasn't joking at all.  She was so relaxed and comfortable in front of the camera.  And she seemed to know exactly what to do, I didn't have to think of the poses alone. We finished in under an hour, and got a lot of great shots.

One of the first shots. One of my favorites.  

I have always wanted to use one of those grassy slopes in UP.  This was another one of my favorites.

Christine is such a natural.:)


I have done a lot of photo shoots at the UP Campus, so I wanted to look for new spots.  While waiting for my models, Pie and I drove around the campus to scout for interesting locations.  We saw this pile of junk in front of the Engineering Bldg. and I knew I wanted to use it.  I told Christine about it and I was so happy when they agreed to shoot there just before we wrapped up the shoot.  The shots turned out even better than I expected.:)

They were talking about where they were going to eat lunch after the shoot here.:D