Beyond the Lens - Expecting

Written by Tamara Kwan of TammyLynn Photography

Featured on I am Gloucestershire 365's website under FYI Daily Blog on Saturday,  22 January 2011

There is nothing like the expected arrival of your first baby, or any baby for that matter. A lot of expecting mums choose to record the beauty of this time in their lives with a professional photo shoot either in a studio like the image I created above or with an environmental shoot like the one I shot below.

I think it’s wonderful that they are doing this, not only because I’m a photographer but because I’m a mother. 21 years ago, when I was a first time mother-to-be, I’d never heard of a special photo shoot for expectant mothers, whereas today it’s common place. I think that Annie Leibovitz’s Vanity Fair cover photo of Demi Moore might have something to do with this.

I do often wish I’d taken more photos of myself when I was pregnant now. Photographers have for a long time offered baby packages for young mothers to record the milestones of their babies’ growth. These days these packages start before the baby is born. I like to call it their first family portrait. J

...a moment in time to treasure forever...

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Portraits, events, commercial, promotional, fantasy and fun. Bump to baby, home to office. Family Portraits, Special Occasions.  Create an image or capture a moment to treasure.

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For more information:

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email: tammy@tammylynn.co.uk
Tamara (Tammy) Kwan 
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Beyond the Lens- Super Mom!

Written by Tamara Kwan of TammyLynn Photography

Featured on I am Gloucestershire 365's website under FYI Daily Blog on Thursday, 16 December 2010

This is one of my favourite photographs that I’ve taken this year, a portrait of my friend Lorca Simons. She’s an actress from Texas who grew up in theatre and, who like me, now calls Gloucestershire home.

My first title for this image was ‘Come Fly with Me’, but I later thought ‘Super Mom’ a better fit, as she is between 7 and 8 months pregnant in the photo.

Technically I’m breaking a composition rule with this image, but I like it anyway. The rule I’m breaking is the  left to right rule. As we read from left to right then images flow better left to right. She’s ‘flying’ from right to left. I could flip the image, and a lot of people do in situations like this, but I don’t like doing that. I think it makes the image look odd. That could be just because I know what it’s supposed to look like though.

I did not have this composition in my head when I took this photo. I saw this image later when the original photograph was coming out of the printer, and I saw it sideways. I thought, wow, it looks like she’s flying! So I did a quick edit to remove the floor, which was mostly black anyway, and rotated the image. I also added a bit more black space on the left and just below to help with the illusion that she was flying and to give her some space to fly into.

Let’s talk about space for a moment. Composition and how much space you have around your subject can greatly effect how the image looks and feels. Sometimes leaving a bit of space can add drama or tension to an image. Sometimes it’s just wasted space and needs to be cropped away. Sometimes cropping in really close and even cropping away some of your subject can add that extra bit of drama to your image. The general rule of thumb is when photographing wildlife or moving objects is to leave a bit of room for them to move into.