Carol's Pregnancy Session

Digital original

Since my first pregnancy images in 1989, I have been fascinated by the beauty of evolving motherhood; I have long hoped for the chance to work with a model throughout a pregnancy. When Carol called me to let me know she was pregnant, and would like to follow the pregnancy with images, I was ecstatic! What was even more fortuitous was that even though she was located in Halifax (just my luck, a chance to work with a model through a pregnancy happens after I move away) her pregnancy (due in the fall) coincided with the summer workshop season, during which time I will be visiting Halifax at least once a month to teach! So plans were laid, and roughly once a month for the next six months or so, I will be working with Carol, doing my best to document the ever changing beauty of a pregnant woman.

8"x10" film

What I hadn't expected was having the entire first session focus on the images we would be making in six months; every composition we made together was produced with a thought to how it would look with the pregnancy was in its final days. Usually, when I work with a model, I am very much in the present, viewing the images through the camera, and envisioning how the final print will look (Ansel Adams had a fancy word for this, "previsualization"), not thinking about how the pose will look on the model months from now.