When a Barrington couple expecting their first baby reached out about maternity photos, they could have chosen somewhere a few minutes from home. Instead, they chose Indiana Dunes. That decision reflects how I hope every mother approaches her maternity session. The question isn’t what’s closest. It’s what she wants to remember.
If you’re starting to plan your own maternity session near Chicago, you can read more about how I approach them. First, though, I want to tell you about this evening on the beach.
Choosing a Location That Feels Like Your Story
Most couples start with convenience, and that makes sense. Pregnancy is tiring, schedules are full, and a nearby park is easy. But the setting shapes how a session feels while you’re in it, and that feeling is what shows up in the photographs.
Some mothers are drawn to open water and wide skies. Others feel most like themselves at home, among the rooms where their baby will soon live. Some want the hush of a forest. Others want a place tied to their relationship, somewhere that already holds a piece of their history.
There’s no right answer. The question I ask couples is simple: when you look back on this season, what do you want to feel?
For this couple, the answer was the beach. The drive from Barrington to Indiana Dunes became part of the experience, a deliberate step away from everyday life to spend an evening focused only on each other.
Rain All Day, and Then a Sunset
It rained throughout the day of their session. I know how unsettling that can be when you’ve planned something meaningful, and weather is never something I can promise. But the rain stopped in time, and the evening ended in a beautiful sunset over the lake.
What stays with me most isn’t the light, though. It’s the two of them. Their session was dreamy and romantic, but also playful and genuinely fun. They didn’t need to be told how to stand close or look at each other. They were clearly in love, and my role was mostly to notice.
That’s what I hope every expecting mother knows before her session: you don’t have to be good at posing. A maternity session can be relaxed. It can include laughter. It can feel less like a photo shoot and more like an evening with the person you’re building a family with, one of the last you’ll spend as just the two of you.
Why We Also Made a Maternity Film
Alongside their photographs, I created a maternity film for this couple.
Photographs hold a single moment still. They let you linger over a glance, the curve of a belly, the way a hand rests. Film holds what happens around those moments: how two people move toward each other, the rhythm of how they interact, the atmosphere of a place. On a beach after a full day of rain, that atmosphere was part of the story.
Someday, their child may watch that film and see their parents exactly as they were in the weeks before they arrived. Photographs and film offer two different ways of remembering the same evening, and together they hold more than either one could alone.
Film isn’t part of every maternity session. It’s an addition for couples who want that extra dimension, and I love talking it through with families who are curious.
If you’re expecting and beginning to imagine your own maternity session, whether on the shore of Lake Michigan, in your home, or somewhere that belongs only to the two of you, I’d love to hear what you have in mind. You can inquire about maternity photography and ask about adding a maternity film here. Let’s find the place that feels like yours.
