Counter-Maternity
In storytelling, there is a narrative principle called Chekhov’s Gun, which states that every element in a story must be necessary and relevant. If something appears, it must have a reason to exist. However, what if that was turned upside down?
The idea behind this shoot with Sophie was to subvert the cliche maternity shoot tropes by treating it like any other portrait shoot. Instead of making her pregnancy the focus, we treated it like a temporary unique physical feature, like a dyed hair color. This was the first time I’ve done a shoot like this, so I had to remember the goal and always try to include her upper body, rather than just getting close up on her face.
I’m always looking for ways to make photography interesting rather than falling into boring cliches. If that’s something you’re also interested in, I’d love to chat more.
