How to do a Milk Bath Maternity Session

Gah. I am SO obsessed with these images! This is just a sneak peek even, I literally just finished shooting this session just over an hour ago, would have had this up sooner but I ran to Chipotle quick first, ha! So, backup to last May when a neighbor reached out for some photos of her little guy in the big dirt piles in their back yard, they had just finished building and landscaping wasn’t complete yet, so she wanted some photos of her little boy being a boy, playing in the dirt with his trucks :) Afterwards, she gave me a tour of her new (gorgeous) home and when I got to the master bath, I literally said out loud “Um, when are you getting pregnant because we have to do a milk bath session in here”. She may have looked at me a little crazily, but, if you know this mama, she’s up for anything fun and different and exciting! Pretty sure baby was conceived that night, ha, or shortly after, because now baby girl is set to arrive within the month!

Thank you, Ashley, for being so willing to invite me into your home and try something new and different for me! Unfortunately I don’t have a gorgeous white and gray bathroom to offer these sessions regularly…but I may consider mini session events in the future and rent out a hotel room or one of the beautiful rooms at the Konsbruck Hotel in St. Peter. Because ladies…I NEED to do more of these!!

Okay, now, the photos :) And a little How To do a Milk Bath Maternity!

We were very specific about the time of day for this session, we wanted her bathroom to be nice and bright but no direct sunlight coming in. Had there been, I could have diffused it with a reflector, but, easier to not have to do that :)

 

It was actually a bit surprising to me how little water we needed. I didn’t want her to be completely submerged, so we maybe only had 4-5″ inches in? Definitely play around with this before putting the milk in so you can adjust the water height based on your model’s size. This gorgeous mama was tiny, so, we just needed a little water :)

I didn’t want the water to get too cold too fast, so I kind of used the milk as the way to cool the water down until it was comfortable for her. And, I only needed  one gallon of whole milk to get this pretty creamy color to the water. Obviously with more water you’d need more milk, but one gallon was perfect! I’ve heard of others using powdered milk as well, but I haven’t tried that.

Now, for the flowers. Silk flowers sink. I sprayed the heck out of these silk buds and greens with Scotch Guard so they floated…a bit. Some more than others. I actually love the amount of float these flowers had, I liked that they were just peeking out sometimes of the milk, added to the softness of the shoot! Gah, have I mentioned I love love love these images?!? I got all of the flowers from my local JoAnn fabric store, nothing fancy!

I seriously cannot wait to do more of these. Please let me know if you have ANY questions on how to do a milk bath maternity session with a comment below!