Trash the Maternity Dress

First of all, this photo is not one of mine. I wish it was, because it's awesome.

(None of the photos used in this post are mine - they're ones I easily found on-line with simple Google searches.)

Now that I'm doing a little bit of photography on the side, I've kept my eyes open and my ear to the ground for hot trends and popular poses, because you just never know when some girl is going to call up and say, "I want to totally ruin my prom dress by wading out into the middle of a creek. Can you come take the pictures?"

Seriously. It happens and has an official name and everything - a "Trash the Dress Session". Several of my photographer friends actually include this on their price lists as an additional option for both bridal and prom photo shoots, and get paid an additional $250 to $1000 to chronicle the destruction of a fancy-ass dress by water and ripping once the big day has passed.

We've all seen the sappy romance novel covers and fashion magazine photos where a beautiful, sopping wet woman is standing barefoot on a beach in full and perfect make-up wearing a wet gown that looks like it has been hung in a boat propeller - sometimes with a man, sometimes alone...

I had no idea that this had become the latest craze in special event photography.  Apparently The Little Mermaid was a more impactful movie than I ever imagined...

After all the time, effort and money spent on the average formal these days, be it wedding dress OR prom dress, I have a hard time believing that many parents are totally on-board with the whole deal, but a simple Google search for "trash the dress" nets enough images to indicate that this is more than a passing fad, so I'm prepared for whatever request I might get as a photographer, which brings me back around to the hilarious photo at the top of this blog post - maternity portraits.

The first maternity portrait I ever remember seeing was the famous August 1991 Vanity Fair cover of Demi Moore shot by the incomparable Annie Leibovitz. I found it beautiful and still do. The very pregnant Demi was nude but not "showing anything"; modestly illuminated against a plain background with simple yet exquisite jewelry and styling. It was a big deal, because nobody had ever seen anything like it before. The photograph and its prominent placement on the cover of VF was groundbreaking in its approach to the pregnant female body. Demi did not look tired or swollen or  even slightly nauseated. She looked gorgeous and perfect, but she's a movie star and looking gorgeous and perfect is kind of her job.

After that it seems the floodgates opened and every "Fertile Myrtle" to go (+) on a pregnancy test suddenly felt empowered to strip down to her birthday suit for portraiture.

And it really seems that the whole family can kind of get into it...

I know and appreciate and respect that every body is beautiful in its own way, and however any of those bodies wants to get his or her picture made is cool with me. I love that women are finding the Demi within themselves, and I'm happy that photographers are making money and practicing their art with these photographs. I sometimes scream "TOO MUCH!!" at my computer screen when someone's maternity shots hit my facebook newsfeed, but that's OK. I'm adaptable.

When I found out Sis was pregnant, I offered to do a maternity shoot for her, but she politely declined.

Maybe once the baby is born she and I can slip off to the creek to trash a maternity dress. It will be Spring by then. And I'll take pictures.