Motherhood & Maternity: A Bader’s Beach Photo Shoot

Last week I was thrilled to be able to get some time together with a lovely mama from my original and close mama tribe. Since meeting in the prenatal class for our first lessons in birth, Alea (who has written guest posts on this blog here, here, and here) is currently expecting her 3rd child. Having done several different photo shoots with her family, I’ve had the pleasure of capturing many beautiful moments and memories with her, and I was keen to snap some shots of this again radiantly expecting mother in a makeshift maternity photography shoot.

We headed down to Bader’s Beach for an afternoon of splashing and sun with all 3 of our girls in tow. Although things started off a bit rocky, with my 3-year-old deciding not to heed the words “Come back! That’s too far!” while setting off in her bright pink floaty for the deeper ocean, we all settled into safer fun so I could casually snap some shots. Then it was swimming time!

I was delighted to see that out short and unplanned session yielded a number of images I was happy with. Then I decided to do something crazy and take a stab at editing photos (beyond slapping on an Instagram filter) for the first time since high school. I can’t believe I haven’t done this with any of my photos in recent years because WOW! What a difference. Much like the first time I realized the enormous difference using a quality DSLR camera makes compared to a quick iPhone shot (though I have also taken some beauties with my phone).

Recently I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how much I enjoy (and have always enjoyed) photography. I remember in high school I would spent countless hours outside of class taking pictures and developing them in the dark room, wishfully dreaming of one day having my own dark room to work in.

Now that life has gotten busier and I’ve developed a solid love of digital photography, my dreams of having a darkroom have been exchanged with a desire for simplicity, but the love of photography is still very much present. And so, I have been working out how to move forward with creating something more out of my passion for framing life’s most precious moments and stunning images. Among the various ideas I’ve come up with and have been working on is a new section of my website to display my favourite photos for sale. I’ll also be using this Hannah Spray Photography section to share examples of the photo shoots I’ve done in the past, in case anyone is interested in hiring myself and my camera to capture something they want to preserve. I’m no Billie Woods, but I’m getting better all the time. Just keep swimming, just keep swimming…

If you head to my photography site soon after this is posted, you’ll notice nothing is available for sale yet. I will be updating this soon, once I’ve confirmed shipping, edited and re-uploaded, and completed a few more behind-the-scenes tasks to make sure everything’s displayed and working how I want it. That being said, if there is anything in particular I’ve photographed that you would like to order as a print, canvas, or otherwise, or if you’d like to take a shot at an inexpensive photo session with me, send me an email and let me know.

So, while I navigate my way through the various to-dos that are already on my plate, I just can’t help but to poke another peg into my light bright of life and hope that the picture comes together. If you never reach for what you want, how will you ever grasp it? Or better yet, how will you ever know if you even want to keep reaching that direction?

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