Spider-Woman/Maternity Photoshoot

October 10, 2018

Spider-Woman/Maternity Photoshoot

This whole cosplay has been such an awesome journey! When I found out I was pregnant I almost immediately began looking for inspiration for a maternity cosplay. It took very little time for me to decide that Spider-woman was the way to go. Reading her story, I related on so many levels. Just like her, I don't want anything to slow me down.

During my first pregnancy I was going to school full time and working part time at a school, and running an after-school art program. When school let out for the summer I renovated a trailer I was living out of most of the week (and took naps) in the southern Arizona heat to keep me busy. This time I have been a stay at home mom, but equally busy with home improvement projects, and potty-training/life with my now three-year-old. I like to think that pregnancy can't slow me down, I have a hard time accepting the new limits my growing belly puts on me.

I related a lot to Jessica Drew when she defended her choices to do certain things while pregnant. I related to her when she chose to put away and hold back from some of the more dangerous aspects of her life. And I related to her decision to act in an emergency situation. Of course my life is not so exciting or dramatic, but on a smaller scale I think a lot of pregnant women go through all of that.

This was my first real cosplay photo shoot, and I knew it had to reflect the character of Spider-woman. This shoot is also a bit different from many Cosplay photos because these are also serving as my maternity photos. I haven't done maternity photos before either so this was all-new territory.

I am an amateur photographer. I got my hands on a DSLR camera a while back and it was so much fun. Free advice, explanations, and tutorials on the internet taught me everything I know. Even so, it is difficult to take photos of yourself, so I had a friend help me focus the lens, find poses, angles, locations, and of course take the pictures.

Putting on the costume and attitude of Jessica Drew felt really great! I felt like a total boss. It was a really great feeling as a mom, like my belly was a newly discovered superpower. There have been times in this pregnancy when I felt like the weight of my belly was holding me down. There is also some anxiety about labor and delivery that I think hits most women. Reflecting on this as I put on the costume a lot of those feelings went away. Even when I felt held back I was still able to achieve a lot, and even though labor is going to be hard, I can do that too. Partly because I am tough, and partly because like Spider-Woman I have the support of friends and loved ones.

Mostly, things went smoothly with this shoot. At the very beginning one of the support pieces that goes over my ear fell off of my glasses, and later one of the lenses fell out, so I wish they were featured in more photos but sadly the glasses just would not stay on for most of the pictures. I hung them from my belt and shirt for some of them though.