Having children is one of the greatest, most universally celebrated events around the world.  And for photographers, it presents a great opportunity to explore and expand creativity while adding additional revenue.

Maternity photos fit neatly within the lifecycle of existing photo clients, which includes genres like engagement, wedding, maternity, newborn, and family photography. In fact, if you’re a wedding or family photographer, you absolutely need to be offering maternity photography for these four reasons:

1. Additional Revenue

Maternity photography presents an additional stream of revenue for your business. This is especially true if you’re a wedding or family photographer. For wedding photographers, the natural progression from marriage to starting a family presents a built-in customer base for your services. Similarly, family photographers are also positioned to capture maternity photography inquiries, since their recurring clients will likely, at some point or another, become pregnant.

Adding the service to your business is a great way to add income to your photography business without having to dramatically shift your business model or spend a lot of resources marketing a new product.

2. New Artistic Opportunities

Maternity photography presents new challenges and opportunities for your artistry and creativity. While similar to wedding and engagement photography, you’ll need to learn and modify your posing to shape the pregnant body in a flattering way. With the right knowledge and experience, you have an opportunity to create beautiful, artistic, and unique photos that are full of life, love and emotion.

supplement-photography-income-maternity

Additionally, Maternity photography wardrobe and dresses present new creative opportunities. Similar to how a wedding photographer might use a veil as a creative element, maternity photographers can use some of these dresses to create dynamic interest. Below are a few examples:

3. Enjoyable, Low-Stress Sessions

Maternity photography sessions are often enjoyable, slow-paced sessions since you need to keep the pregnant woman’s health, safety and energy as a priority. The sessions only last an hour or two, and you’re typically staying in a single, calm, and (hopefully) stress-free location. Your focus is on capturing a handful of beautiful, impactful images, with a strong focus on image quality over quantity.

For most photographers, the combination of ample time, controlled lighting, and meaningful purpose of the images equates to making maternity photography a dream job.

Less Direct Competition

(Wedding photography search results on the left; maternity photography search results on the right)

While different for every area, maternity photography competition is typically lower than with other genres.  The graphic above illustrates the difference between a wedding photographer search (left) and a maternity photographer search (right) in our immediate Orange County, CA area.

This presents an opportunity for photographers to really stand out. It also provides opportunities to rank higher in search results easier than with other genres.

Conclusion

While maternity photography may not be for everybody, there are plenty of incentives to take it on. Here’s a recap of why you should add maternity photo sessions to your list of services:

  • They create additional revenue
  • They open new artistic opportunities
  • They are meaningful, yet low-stress
  • There is less competition compared to other genres

If you’re interested in learning more about maternity photography, we recently launched the Complete Maternity Photography Workshop. This workshop addresses critical concepts in maternity photography, including the nuances of posing and directing, lighting, and keeping the mother-to-be safe throughout the session. It also looks at the gear you’ll need and includes a bonus guide for maternity photography marketing strategies.  See the trailer below: