If you don’t have JM Photography bookmarked, I encourage you to check out her site. Jessica is an award winning photographer from Minneapolis/St.Paul, who recently submitted this outdoor maternity session. The photographs are inspirational both for their technical execution and creative approach, conveying an extraordinary amount of emotion and connection. Be sure to read Jessica’s comments below as she offers some great advice for getting the natural looks you want in-camera.

From Jessica:
This session was dreamed up by my client Dani.  Her love for Nate and their horse Armani was the perfect way to capture this amazing time in their lives.  Nate boards his horse at a beautiful farm out in the country in Minnesota and I was truly in heaven photographing Dani’s maternity session there!  Gorgeous white fences lined with mature trees made for the perfect backdrop for this session.  Armani was such a loving horse, she would nuzzle into Dani’s belly and it was just too cute and too perfect for words :)

Tips:  One thing I strive for in my photography is getting things right “in camera”.  I think these days with everyone being digital we tend to over process our images because there are actions galore to give you the look you want.  However, if you strive for getting things right in camera, then you cut down on editing time and you truly achieve a natural gorgeous image.

For this session I wanted a beautiful sun flare look. I know there are many actions available for purchase for this, but you can actually achieve this look with out them.  The key to great sun flare is to not have your lens directly shooting into the sun, nor do you want the sun totally behind you.  For this session I just turned my lens slightly to the left of the sun.  I also utilized a hood on my Canon 70-200 f2.8L and Canon 50 f1:2L lenses.  This can also help you to filter the light in just the right way.  Timing is also important for sun flare, you don’t want to shoot when the sun is on the horizon because then it’s too low to get this look. I like to start about 2 hours prior to sunset for the best flare effect.

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