Maternity Photos At Ace Hotel & Palm Springs
With the baby due in less than 3 weeks (oh my gosh), Corissa and I decided to take a little overnight trip to Palm Springs while we still had the freedom to come and go as we please. We figured a short getaway to the desert would give us a chance to do another round of maternity photos. Here are my abandoned house maternity photos from a couple months back, if you want to compare. We also wanted to enjoy a little time together, talk baby stuff, and simply relax before the endless nights of non-sleeping arrive.
We booked a room at one of our all-time favorite spots, Ace Hotel. We snapped photos, swam in the pool, and ate so much I literally thought I’d barf. I blame the vegan chicken wings from Native Foods for that. We both needed and deserved that kind of relaxation. We’d just finished putting a nursery together, reading books about how to be awesome parents, going to doctor’s visits, taking classes, and doing everything necessary to get a kid into the world ready to rock.
The pool was cool, the weather was hot, and everything was just about perfect. Here’s a brief look at our day together, told in the medium of photography. Enjoy!
Why Do Maternity Photos Somewhere Like Palm Springs?
Honestly, you don’t need a fancy excuse to get out of town before the baby comes. But Palm Springs makes a really good one. The desert light out here does something magic in the late afternoon. Everything goes gold and soft. It’s genuinely the easiest place I’ve ever shot a pregnant belly and had it look incredible. Between the mountains, the palm trees, and all that mid-century architecture, you’ve got a dozen backdrops within a 10-minute drive.
It’s also just a nice change of scenery. If you’ve been stuck in the same nursery-painting, doctor’s-appointment routine for months, a weekend away resets your mood. That shows up in the photos too. Relaxed people take better pictures than stressed people, every single time.
Turning A Baby Moon Into A Maternity Shoot (Or Vice Versa)
This is basically what Corissa and I did, and I’d recommend it to anyone. Instead of treating your maternity photos and your babymoon as two separate trips, just smash them together. One trip, one hotel booking, one round of PTO. You walk away with both the relaxation and the photos. No extra logistics, no second trip you have to squeeze in before the due date sneaks up on you.
It also just feels better emotionally. You’re not standing around posing for an hour and then going home. You’re actually on vacation. The photos are just part of the weekend, and that changes the whole energy of the shoot. Less performance, more just being a couple who’s about to have a kid together.
You’ll Feel Better About The Photos Than You Think
A lot of moms come into a maternity session feeling a little self-conscious, and that’s normal. Your body’s doing something huge and unfamiliar. But almost every time, by the end of the shoot, people are having fun. They forget the camera’s even there. A change of scenery helps with that more than people expect. You’re not in your own house feeling watched, you’re somewhere new, a little more yourself. The photos end up capturing that confidence, not just the belly.
You’ll find more of my iPhone photography on my Instagram account. For my iPhone photos I typically edit using VSCO Cam and AfterLight. There are a lot of great mobile apps for post processing now, so Mextures and all those other ones are great too, I’m just not that familiar with them. I captured all of the iPhone 5 photos at Ace Hotel in Palm Springs, California.
