Kate | Urban Maternity Portraits in Downtown Durham

Most of my pregnancy, I didn't really want maternity photos. I'm not a flowy dress, Earth Mother-y, hands-forming-hearts kind of person. I like to talk, but I don't really like to be the center of attention. Nothing about my pregnancy felt particularly...glowing, or effulgent, or, really, anything very special. I was tired; I was apprehensive; I was ambivalent. Applying the temporary identity of pregnant to myself never stopped feeling weird.

Somewhere in the middle of my second trimester, though, I got to the point where I started feeling really cute. And my hair looked great all the time. Since I really didn't know--and don't, and won't for a while--whether I will ever have another baby, I warmed to the idea of documenting myself as a pregnant person. And then we just kept putting it off until I was positively huge and it was nearing June and all the steaminess and sweatiness in the air wasn't just a factor of the little dude heating up my blood from the inside.

I won't go so far as to say that all photographers are difficult clients--probably just neurotic ones, like me. Yet Michael was as patient as ever, letting me chimp and fix my hair and then reshooting, letting me direct the shoot a little bit, and going where I wanted to go at my pace. At thirty-eight weeks pregnant, it can be hard to move freely, let alone feel good while doing it.

All in all, I'm glad to have these photos and glad to share them with you; though it's a little weird, I think, to share photos of oneself on a blog dedicated to one's work, these images do reflect our work, and something that has and will affect our work, and I'm so grateful to my husband for taking them.

I'm also extremely grateful that I no longer look like this. Thanks to the baby for coming out, but more on him at another time!

Wedding and portrait photographers. Husband and wife. All-purpose nerds. Extremely enthusiastic. Durham, NC.

Kate | Urban Maternity Portraits in Downtown Durham

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