ragenia's maternity session

Several months ago when I was taking portraits of my friend Ayesha, I met a sweet, soft-spoken lady named Ragenia...another friend of Ayesha's who stopped by while we were shooting. She had mentioned that she was expecting a baby, and we started talking about setting up a maternity session.

I always chat with people I'm going to shoot about the mood and style they want to achieve in their photos. Ragenia is a very creative woman, and had wonderful ideas to add to the mix. In addition to her already unique input, a week or so before our shoot, I got a message from her asking if I was afraid of snakes. I thought about it and figured "no" if it's a controlled situation that does not remotely resemble the scene from "Raiders of the Lost Ark". Then I got really excited about the idea.

Her friend Eddie brought over his pet boa constrictor, Baby. Baby is a beautiful creature and was well behaved the whole time. She worked it for the camera and at no point tried to squeeze the life out of anyone. Good girl.

Ragenia was so at ease during her session, and is one of the most natural, earthy indiviualds I've met. Just being around her makes you feel calm. I'm so glad that we got to take these pictures of her in all her gorgeousness. We almost ran out of time since she's due within the next week.

We took lots of photos and some were without Baby the snake. However, I can't post the majority of them here because there's nudity involved. So, those are just for Ragenia to enjoy.

Here are a few that I can share with you.

Near the end of the session, we were joined by her cutie-pie son, Red Hawk. Ragenia has a collection of feathers that she's gathered from many special places, so we had to work those into some of the images. I adore this one.

She's also a wonderful artist (wood carving, henna, paintings, etc), so she mixed up some clay paint and created this design. There's nothing she can't do!

Ragenia, thanks so much for an incredible maternity session like no other.