Batch of links - Maternity photos

I can’t resist to a round-up of awkward pregnancy photos. Some pregnancy photo shoots are tasteful and really beautiful, too, but there are so many weird ones out there that it’s really worth taking a look, just for laughs. (We’re not planning on having a professional photo shoot ourselves, but we are taking pictures of my growing belly for posterity anyway. I’m not even sure the Engineer knows what a pregnancy photo shoot is.)

First, check out this link and that linkon the blog Pregnant Chicken; they’re the first ones I saw when I started hearing about the concept of awkward pregnancy photos (though I was no stranger to awkward family photos). Then there’s this link with bigger pictures and this link with 50 pictures and that one with 50 pictures as well (that last one does have a lot of repeats, but enough funny news ones that I’m sharing the link anyway).

There are also adoption “pregnancy” photo shoots, which you can look for on Pinterest, but I wanted to link to the one that started it all: this awesome post from Jejune.net, featuring Alana of A Public House (both in the links on the right, because I’ve been reading them for years). It isn’t awkward, just incredibly funny and à propos. I’m also partial to this one.

I would also like the share links to some excellent and original pregnancy photo shoots. Let’s start with an underwater shoot by Kevin Beasley that I really like. There are also series of photos, like these silhouettes or this shirt showing the progression of the baby bump, or series showing the size of the baby using a fruit or vegetable for comparison, like you can see here by scrolling down. I also love the idea of writing down milestones, dates and anecdotes on a chalkboard, as seen on the blog Little Baby Garvin, also by scrolling down. (By the way, you can also do this with babies, like here or here! My friend Jen also had a good series with her daughter, posed every month next to a giant teddy bear she got as a gift at birth, so it showed her growth next to the same reference point. Others have done it with a laundry basket or an armchair, and I plan to use Darwin for scale!) Given that my calligraphy skills aren’t that great, though, what I really would have liked to do if I had the right setup to take pictures is something like this maternity series by Lexia Frank, which I think is fabulous. If anyone out there is newly pregnant, consider the app CineMama, which comes with a grid to keep pictures consistent and turns them into a time-lapse movie.

And while we’re talking about pictures, here’s a hilarious thing to do someday: recreate old family photos - you should take a look at Young Me / Now Mewhen you have some time to spare!