During The Groove Yoga Festival: Island Jam on the Croatian Island Hvar I got the opportunity to take some portraits of the Yoga teachers in bright sunshine. We chose beautiful locations for the pictures like the beach with crystal clear water in the background or the historic centre. I really like to strike out and choose the places for a shooting spontaneously.Very frequently you can not predict the incident of the sunlight and often find the perfect place where everything fits well more accidently. Furthermore it is recommended to search for remote locations where are not many people around who can cause unrest.
Everyone of the very talented yoga teachers took their time and offered me countless Yoga Asanas, that sometimes turned out to be very acrobatic. Every photshoot was special and Iam happy the different pictures show all the numerous facets Yoga has to offer. Even when this can not be compared to a regular yoga class in your favourite studio. While the external influences on a yoga mat in a studio are pretty low and the excercises are paramount, our yoga portraits were all about getting an expressive impeccable photo. For this the yoga instructors sometimes had to repeat a pose 10 times, hold them longer than usual and even had to defy sweat, heat, sand and wind. As a photographer you get a bad conscience in these circumstances when you say „Please, once again“, only because the solar radiation still was not perfect. But the hard work paid off and I am very happy to add such exceptional yoga portraits to my portfolio.
And to all the yogis out there I can only say, do not worry when you can not recreate the poses of Dylan Werner on the rocks at home. I guess only a few people manage that. ;o)
With: Andrea Sauter, Doug Swenson, David Lurey, Dylan Werner, Eva Klein, Liz Huntly, Roland Jensch, Mackenzie Miller and Twee Merrigan
