Run At Me Until the Background Smears: Neely Gracey’s Session

Most maternity photographs ask a mother to be still. This one asked her to run at me until the background smeared. Some of my favorite work is the non-traditional athletes. A big bump doesn’t mean you have to press pause on your passion. It means you get to share it with your soon to be sidekick.

Neely Gracey races professionally, so a static portrait would have been a photograph of the wrong person. We spent the first half of the session on motion. Panning blur, where the camera tracks her and the world behind her tears sideways. Longer exposures where her legs disappear into the stride and the bump stays sharp. Those frames are technically fussy and most of them fail, which is exactly why the ones that land look like nothing else in my portfolio.

The first frame that worked. Everything behind her tore sideways.

What they show is speed and power in a pregnant body, which is a combination the internet still finds surprising and should not.

We shot in summer, at the location I only share with booked clients, which has the open ground you need to let somebody actually get going. Then we wrapped with traditional frames in a baby blue maternity dress, because she is also a person and not only an engine, and both halves belong in the same gallery.

The pregnant athletes series exists for this. Nobody stops being who they were because they got pregnant. They just get told to.

Neely coaches runners at Get Running Coaching if you want to keep training through yours.

Still doing your thing at thirty weeks? Let's photograph it. The form on the inquiry page is the best way to get in touch.