Twenty years after a pregnant Demi Moore did what was to become known as ‘a Demi’ on the front cover of Vanity Fair, more women are opting to start their family albums early. SAM WONFOR casts aside her inhibitions (among other things) and joins them

IT WON’T come as a surprise to anyone who knows me – or anyone who has seen me for that matter – that doing a photo shoot with nothing more than a roll of muslin cloth for on-camera company has never crossed my mind.

But pregnancy does funny things to a woman… even one whose current share of the marital king-size bed is approaching the 80% mark.

And so it was that a few days after interviewing Newcastle-based photographer Alison Groves, I found myself standing at an upstairs window in our house, wrapped loosely in a couple of metres of off-white fabric while proudly cradling my bare and baby-filled bump with pride.

It wasn’t something I’d ever envisaged myself doing – and definitely wasn’t something which the mature lady over the road was expecting to see when she sat on her sunshine-soaked step for her daily elevenses.

I have since explained all, and she thought it was all rather splendid.

It had all started when I asked Alison if I could come and talk to her about her work with mums-to-be who want to start the family album before the birth of their soon-to-be bundle of joy. Although it has been almost two decades since a naked Demi Moore posed at seven months pregnant for Annie Leibovitz, (who subsequently put it on the front cover of Vanity Fair, leading to an estimated 100 million people seeing it), the idea of commissioning an au naturel pregnancy portrait is still one which only occurs to the relative minority.

But if the demand for Alison’s bespoke services is anything to go by, it’s a notion which is getting more popular by the trimester.

“This year has been quiet in terms of the weddings I’ve done because people are trying to save money, but I’ve been much more busy than usual with the bump and baby shoots,” says Manchester-bred Alison, who has made photography her business for the past nine years.

“The majority of the ladies who have it done, are pregnant with their first baby. So everything is new and it’s all special and magical. Lots of women get their partner to take pictures of them throughout the pregnancy to see how they’re changing.

“I suppose this is kind of an extension of that – wanting something they can put on the wall which is maybe a bit more abstract or artistic. Or they might just want to keep it in an album for themselves.”

As a mother of two boys – Max, seven and Tom, four – Alison says a woman’s desire to get a photographic memento of pregnancy doesn’t surprise her.