This was the session that made me fall in love with North Curl Curl and made me come back time and time again with my lovely clients. There’s just something about sunrise at North Curl Curl at the end of summer that feels made for this kind of moment. The light comes in warm and low, the waves keep doing their thing, and everything else just falls quiet, typically I find myself completely alone on this beach. That’s exactly where Katie and I found ourselves on a late-February morning and honestly, it was one of those sessions I’ll keep thinking about for a while.
Katie was 38 weeks along with her second baby when we met at the rocks that morning. There’s something different about second-time mums - a quieter confidence, a knowing. She’d done this before, but this moment, this baby, was entirely its own.
Katie came to her maternity shoot alone, and I think that takes a certain kind of courage and self-assurance. No distractions, no one else to direct - just her, her bump, and the sea. There’s a rawness to a solo session that you can’t manufacture, and Katie leaned into it completely.
As the light warmed, we got into the rock pools. Katie sat in the shallows and let the ocean wash over her, a moment that called for black and white. Water running over a bump, hands cradling underneath, the texture of wet skin and sea spray. It’s intimate and elemental in a way that colour can’t always capture.
By the time we hit the last frames, the sky had softened into that hazy golden warmth that late-summer mornings do so beautifully at North Curl Curl. Katie matching the sunrise in her golden yellow dress, perched on the rocks, looking out across the water. Waves catching her hem. The kind of image that makes you want to sit with it a while.
As the session drew to a close, the sun had fully risen over the headland and the light was doing something magic. We finished with silhouettes, that backlit profile against the glittering water is one of my favourite things to capture, I was in awe with the beauty I was witnessing. The way a pregnant belly reads in pure shadow, strong and unmistakable. This was Katie at 38 weeks pregnant. There’s nothing quite like it to end a session.
This is what maternity photography is, at its best, not just documenting a bump, but capturing who you are in this season of your life.
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Maternity Photography at North Curl Curl, Sydney
North Curl Curl is one of my favourite locations on the Northern Beaches for maternity sessions. The rock platforms, the surf, and that wide-open sky give so much to work with at sunrise. If you’re based on the Northern Beaches or Sydney’s Lower North Shore and thinking about a maternity session, whether it’s your first baby or your fourth - I’d love to hear from you.