Venessa & Tom: A morning by the lake

April 13, 2014Olivier Glod

Two weeks ago, I had the honour of doing my first ever couples / pregnancy shoot. As far as firsts go, this was pretty perfect: gorgeous weather, a beautiful location (the lake in Echternach), and a charming, very relaxed couple.

The happy couple, minutes after arriving at the lake.

I've had the pleasure of knowing Venessa and Tom for quite a few years now and was overjoyed and deeply touched when they asked me if I wouldn't mind shooting a couple of frames for them to remember the final days of their pregnancy by.

"A couple of frames" quickly turned into a full-blown two hour shoot. We had so much fun that neither of us noticed how time just flew by.

Mia and Jack, their two Australian Shepherds, also had a blast :-)

Jack and Mia, enjoying the fact that we were early enough that nobody else was at the lake yet ;-)

My favourite part of this shoot has to be how open, fun-loving and easy-going Venessa and Tom were. I approached this project as I would a wedding: by providing very little guidance, giving it a more documentary style look. They both enjoyed not being constantly bossed around and forced into unnatural poses, while at the same time coming up with ideas how they wanted to be shot.

Pulling faces, striking poses and general silliness all around made for a brilliant shoot :-)

The only regret I have, is not having had a reflector at hand. I softened most of the local shadows in post as far a possible, but still...

For this shoot, I used the gorgeous Sigma 85mm f/1.4 lens mounted on the Canon 5D Mark III, together with the Sony RX1R for the wider shots. Both were a joy to use and I can see myself making this my go-to combo for similar shoots in the future, although I'll probably try the Fuji X-T1 with the XF23mm f/1.4 and XF56mm f/1.2 lenses next time.

From a technical point of view, I have to admit I'm deeply impressed by the RX1R.