This diverse maternity session in Greenwich, CT saw an upscale hotel room, tropical atrium, fallen-tree terrain, smoke bombs, police calling, and submerging underwater.
Prudent Vets
Here are my vets again! One is a veterinarian and another — a veteran USAF military working dog handler. I featured their industrial-chic wedding in 2018. Nicki was smart to secure a special pricing during my pandemic sale in March 2020. She wasn’t pregnant yet but as she put it, “We’d love to take advantage of the current offer and invest in something now that we hope to use in the future.” That super sale is long gone but you can catch another by being on my mailing list and planning ahead. 🙂
When the time came and the couple was blessed with the pregnancy, Nicki and I put our heads together to celebrate with creative photography. The family is from Connecticut, so to make it easier on her travel, I offered to have their maternity session in Greenwich, CT. It’s the same trip for me as to get to NYC, by the way, but the road is sooo much lighter on traffic and easier on the nerves! Scenic, too!
Underwater Maternity
Nicole has been hooked on my underwater maternity for a while and that was one of the ideas for photoshoot. However, we’re in January so only an indoor pool would work. This means using a commercial venue — possibly more difficult to get into but doable! I shot another underwater maternity for Miss Universe Jamaica runner-up just a few months ago in a residential building pool, also in Connecticut. Or, would you think a church had a pool underground? On Park Avenue, in Manhattan?? :O
Perfect Location
We found a perfect location, Hyatt Regency Greenwich. Not only do they have a decent-size indoor pool, but you get your hotel room to work in, and an exotic-looking atrium planted with tropical trees. The atrium reminded me of the Caribbean resorts where I shot destination weddings. Ah, and due to the travel industry crisis caused by COVID, the room rates start at just $99! The hotel still felt empty with only a couple of other guests we encountered during the the first part of the shoot. It’s also the location: I saw quite a more livelier picture in Las Vegas hotels previous month during my 3-day photoshoot there.
Now that I look at the next photo, Richard Avedon’s photograph of Dovima at a Paris circus in 1955 for Harper’s Bazaar comes to mind… A monogamic version.
On Dark Maternity Photography
After completing the indoor portion of this diverse maternity session in Greenwich, CT, we drove to a nearby park. We had smoke grenade to fire! First we picked a secluded area with the fallen trees piling up. They begged me to try a darker feel. Maternity photography isn’t usually associated with darkness but why do everything conventionally? I ran a quick IG poll while writing this blog. Quite predictably, got a whopping 1:10 ratio of dark vs. light maternity feels. I hear you, and willing to please, but throw in an experimental idea, be different, unpredictable! Put those uniqueness memes you preach in social media to use. I love to add drama to my maternity photography if you’re adventurous enough.
You Can Run and You Can Hide
We then switched to the brighter colors. Just started playing with them when noticed a diligent citizen exercising her civilian duty of reporting us to the police. We drove away to another part of the park to finish with the rainbow burst of smoking colors!
Diving Tiger
To conclude our half-day maternity session in Greenwich, CT, we went back to the hotel. It was getting dark. I knew I won’t have time to do a full underwater lighting setup, so natural light was my main source. I immediately noticed that the water wasn’t perfectly clear. That, combined with the diminishing light, spelled extra work in post-production but I managed to pull off this neat image.
A fun fact for the epilogue. I usually don’t bother to explain my sagacious (wha?) blog title catchwords but “puzo” in Russian means “big belly” in a joking way. Nicki’s last name was once Puza.
On this humorous note, I’m wishing Nicki and Adam a healthy and happy little boy to grow into a brave and caring man! Hugs to the family!
Behind the Scenes
A 1-min video to show how we were jumping around the smoke grenades:
