One of the things I love about yoga is how in line with your body you can become if you focus on that connection and awareness. In photographing an experienced yogini, you can really get a sense of this connection and it is absolutely beautiful to watch. My model had the idea of getting outside in the snow for a yoga portrait session and this presented some logistical challenges. One the keys to yoga is the connection with the ground and it can be quite a challenge to make this connection in unstable snow. To overcome this, we put down a 6 foot long table in the snow to create a base for my model’s yoga mat. This allowed her to perform her asanas (postures) as she would if in a studio. The other challenge was the cold and the only real way to combat that was to take a lot of warming up breaks in between shots. She was a trooper and fought through the frozen feet. 🙂 As with most photography I do, a large part of the success of this session was dependent on the lighting and I used a 5 foot octagonal softbox as my main light combined with a small speed light flash for some kicker light to get what I was looking for. Without the lights, the background would have been a washed out bunch of nothing and you would lose the impact that was achieved in this session.
I love Trina’s expression in this image as I was probably saying something silly to get her to laugh.
Parsvakonasana (extended side angle pose) is one of the most beautiful, yet simple, poses in all of yoga. It shows such great angles in the body and flows really well visually.
This was a quick grab shot while my subject was warming up her feet.
Another one where you can see my kicker light. I really like the balance of the light and the model in this photo.
After we had captured all of the yoga portraits we were looking for, I had to take advantage of having a gorgeous model with perfect lighting in front of me so we moved on to some fashion-esque portraits. Making my job easier, my subject is a total natural at this and I came away with some of my favorite portraits ever.
