One of studio’s famous underwater clients is coming back with a second maternity session, and we are sticking to the water!
[perfectpullquote align=”right” cite=”Christine” link=”” color=”#8C76AF” class=”” size=”16″]I just looked at the pictures and they are absolutely fabulous! I can’t stop admiring them and had to really force myself to step away from them to send you a big thank you from the bottom of my heart![/perfectpullquote]Christine is one of studio’s legendary clients with a solid and permanent presence in my portfolio due to the rare and tough nature of her first session—underwater maternity. About four years ago we created some striking imagery that caught the eye of Cosmopolitan magazine and BellyBelly, a million-strong Facebook community and website (Australia). This time, however, she requested “some simple pictures” with the family to avoid competing with her earlier ones, “pretty extraordinary and hard to match”. I agreed because it also worked for my intense June schedule which had another underwater maternity session a few days after hers, to be published later. A short session and family presence aren’t beneficial for a true artistic exploration but I could not resist to try a couple of more creative shots between the fun-packed family moments.
The location of our choice was the Little Red Lighthouse in the Fort Washington Park, a pretty difficult to reach location unless you bike or run along the Hudson River. The place is not meant to be approached by car and barely by foot, taking you to a very long convoluted path from the Washington Heights where I used to live in the past. Not an easy feat for a pregnant lady and a 4-year-old… The obvious advantage is lack of tourists and wanderers.
Christine’s native language is French (hence my targeted soundtrack for the Snapchat’s sneak peek) and cassis is a European black currant used mainly to make crème de cassis liqueur and black currant syrup. She is naming her girl Cassis and hence the usage of a black current prop, an artificial piece shipped from overseas for this maternity session. The other prop you see is 1942 children’s book The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge by Hildegarde Swift, illustrated by the celebrated Lynd Ward. The popular book’s touching story is said to have saved the iconic lighthouse, the only lighthouse on the island of Manhattan, from being dismantled as obsolete after the construction of George Washington Bridge with its navigating lights.
P.S. Phew, this is the 7th blog post in less than a month. Four of them were on maternity, and I have three more to publish! As I explained on my Facebook, it is the season and I shot a lot, maternity and not… 🙂 I tried to publish as much as I could before going to Greece tomorrow for a week to cover a destination wedding. Take a break from my blog but do not be surprised to see more bellies in a few weeks. They’ll be worth checking out: something insane, something underwater, and something ethnically epic.
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