brandt mackney, dark and light (PEOPLE 2026)

This is an image captured of my friend Lauren in her late stages of pregnancy . Shot off the local jetty , the belly, the angle of the sun, the tides and the movement of the ocean all needed to line up for this shot to work. Defocused to create more dots than sharp edges and waiting for the perfect time to release the shutter. shot with the canon r5ii and the 70-200 2.8 ef .

Images have been resized for web display, which may cause some loss of image quality. Note: Original high-resolution images are used for judging.