6 months ago I moved from corporate America to following my passion of becoming a professional photographer (maternity and newborn). Fortunately my husband is very supporting and I'm able to leave my salary position. I upgraded my Nikon D700 to a Nikon D810 but quickly realized here in Orange County, CA, competition within the maternity photography market is tough cookies! There are some seriously good photographers. Now I might be wrong about this, but I figured the best way to build my way to the top, is experience. And the only way to get that is I need to dive in full time.

Now like anything, finding an angle that you can market yourself against what others are doing is key. So I have been looking at different ways to separate myself, I've been reading tons and tons of blogs about maternity photography tips and there are a couple YouTube channels that I've been watching over and over as well. And so far, a ton of ideas of what to do with poses and locations and props. But still nothing ground breaking that would separate myself from others.

Now my father used to collect antiques. He would drive all over California to all the swap meets for the search of strange or just unique old antiques. I remember for the longest time, he had this boxy looking old school camera that I thought was so interesting. After some recent research, I realized this camera was a large format camera. So this is the angle I'm wondering about doing. I would take maternity photos using one of these cameras! I don't know (and I've researched) a single photographer playing these cards. I started researching different large format cameras and end up looking at a Chamonix 45N-1, but then I realized the newer model was the 45N-2.

The thing I'm hoping someone here can help me out with is:

1. Learning curve using a large format camera?
2. Any restrictions that might make it tough to use for maternity photography?
3. In terms of large format cameras, how is the Chamonix 45N-2?

OK, that is all my questions I have for now. I would really appreciate any help you can offer!

And thank you for reading my long post here!

Alex