Day 246 – Pregnancy Photoshoot

Let me start by saying, I was the one taking the pictures, not the pregnant one!

When one of my closest Frankfurt friends revealed to me during lockdown that she was pregnant, I just wanted to give her the biggest of big hugs possible. Unfortunately, as she lives on one side of the city, and I on the other, we took social distancing to its truest sense and hadn’t been able to see each other since February. Being pregnant for the first time, whilst in the middle of a pandemic has been really tough on Gerry, especially as she’s countries away from family too. Today, I filled my backpack with cake, some gifts, and my camera, and trekked across the city for two hours to finally go and pay her a visit.

Before coming to Frankfurt, my friend used to take the most beautiful pictures of new mums-to-be in pregnancy photoshoots. Now that she was pregnant, she naturally wanted similarly beautiful pictures but was struggling to do it by herself. She took my visit as an opportunity to have a mini-photoshoot so she could document this special time in her life. I think this was a great idea in theory, but man was I terrified of taking pictures of an actual photographer – how intimidating! Especially ones as important as these. Thankfully, I could calm down playing with the best dog in Frankfurt, the too-cute-for-words Sascha.

After a mega frisbee session with Sascha, we set up a family shoot with my friend and her husband. I think I felt the most pressure here, as her husband was in between work meetings and I needed to get it right. It was a little bit awkward at first, the only ‘photo-shoot’ I’d done before had been for rats, so I wasn’t used to saying much whilst taking the pictures. Gerry helped me out though, striking different poses, and asking for different angles. It turns out photographing a photographer wasn’t so bad after all.

After she was satisfied that we got some nice family shots (of course, including some with Sascha), her husband dashed off and we tried some just of her. I felt quite emotional at this point. My lovely friend, eight months pregnant, and just looking so beautiful – it was really a privilege to be able to take these pictures for her.

I should have been far less worried about getting the angles right and focused more on celebrating this time with my dear friend. I’m glad I realised in the moment rather than when I got home, and we had the best time catching up and giggling with the dog. Although I don’t think I could do a pregnancy photoshoot for strangers, doing it for a friend was a massive privilege and honour, and one that I’d happily repeat.