HYDERABAD: We all love to cherish memories and capturing them in photo albums is what keeps life’s precious moments evergreen. This is especially true when it comes to archiving maternity — a phase in a couple’s life that’s so intimate that they want to relive every moment of it.
For this, they hire professional photographers to plan a maternity photo shoot for them. Siddhu Soma, the founder of Vows by Siddu Soma and Little Vows, says maternity photo shoots can comprise moments from the time a couple announces their pregnancy till the time they conceive. “Here, people are not that open-minded, but abroad, they have photo sessions while giving birth. I wanted to shoot moments when my baby was being born, but the hospital did not permit me,” he says.
A maternity photo shoot can have several interesting concepts — one of them is photos of the medical reports. Otherwise, the trends which are common in Hyderabad are shopping for the unborn child, capturing the moment when the couple breaks the big news to their loved ones and recreating a wedding photo to fit it in this context. “We did this for Allu Arjun (the actor), where we added a kid to his wedding photo. I wanted to shoot moments from the entire 12 months when the baby was growing and he was up for my idea,” says Siddhu, who charges Rs 1 lakh for a session.
Jovy Thomas, another popular name in the business, thanks technology as she can capture the beauty of pregnancy. “Nowadays, we have such advanced DSLR cameras and powerful lens that we can tell the story in such a beautiful way. People are inspired by social media posts. Most of the maternity photo shoots focus on flaunting the baby bump.
And, a DSLR with a good lens simply does the trick,” says Jovy, who works primarily on outdoor locations. “Most of my clients want a natural setting — under a tree or in a garden. It is so much fun to have do a shoot by an ocean,” she says. Jovy charges Rs 15,000 for 10 high-resolution pictures which she prints for her clients.
One of her clients, Sagar Kashinath and his wife Bhagyashree Sagar, can’t go a day without looking at their photos. “Our daughter is two years old and we still look at the pictures of when my wife was carrying. It’s overwhelming,” says Sagar.