yoga content creation for a Delray Beach yogini
The clouds were dark grey, thick and heavy with rain as I was driving to Keslee’s photoshoot. Will we be able to create the photos she needs ASAP for a yoga clothing company sponsoring her posts?
It definitely didn’t look like photoshoot weather when I was driving to the agreed location to meet her. Keslee and I made plans for a one-hour yoga content creation photoshoot in Boca Raton. The clouds were dark grey, thick and heavy with rain and as I was driving, a torrential downpour started. Windshield wipers swinging like crazy from side to side, I could hardly see the road in front of me. “It’s pouring where I am,” she texts me. “Let’s meet at our location and see how it is”, I reply to her. Will we be able to create the photos she must create for one of the brands sponsoring her posts?
When we get to our photoshoot location by a lake, the skies have cleared, there isn’t even a drizzle, but for how long?
Keslee has one outfit, but a series of poses she must capture in photos for the campaign that a yoga clothing company Alo is sponsoring. She made a list of poses which makes our flow more efficient. We get to work.
We start on the sidewalk next to the lake and play there first.
We then go to a different section with tall grass, and I LOVE the photos we create there. See if you can spot two dragonflies in one of them ;)
My goal as a photographer is to create a variety of images for my clients.
Even though we are photographing in ONE general location, I aim to find DIFFERENT BACKDROPS for photos so photos don’t all look the same.
As we venture into a woody area, Keslee attempts another handstand on the path and says, “No, there are no more handstands left in me for today.” Here is what we create under the canopy of freshly washed oak trees and shrubs:
In precisely one hour we finish all the poses Keslee needed to capture, and it starts drizzling again! We are elated - perfect timing for a perfect photoshoot!
As we head back to the parking lot, I get inspired by the bridge (that I have seen thousands of times! photographers love bridges - leading lines, you know :)) Keslee is game to play even though it is raining. You can actually see slight streaks of rain drops falling in these photos.
And on the very final walk back to the car, I take a couple of photos by the lake, with a heron in the back as a supporting model.
When I was a beginner in photography, rain was my worst photographic nightmare. Now, I love the dramatic skies of before or after the rain, and even photographing in the rain is something I find inspiring. Pretty blue skies get boring after a while, and since we are looking to create scroll-stopping images for a social media content creator, different is good.
Check out this reel see some behind-the-scenes magic of that day.
I cannot believe how strong and powerful this Goddess is and I admire the pretzel shapes that she bends herself into!
behind-the-scenes magic of a yoga photoshoot
Interested in a content-creation session to boost your social media growth? I love working with creatives and spiritual entrepreneurs and helping them grow their businesses.
Just like that, in one hour’s time we created all these photos. I sent all color corrected photos to Keslee less than 48 hours after we photographed. I knew she needed them as soon as possible and I was excited to see what we created together. I have even put together this piece for her, which my followers suggested a title “The Thinker, The Observer, The Doer.”
other yoga photoshoots:
a singing yogi
Imagine taking a hot yoga class that makes you feel like you have worked out such DEEP muscles in your body that you didn't even know existed and all the toxins evaporated from your body leaving you light, sweat pouring down your face which you gave up wiping, and you are feeling proud for having shown up.
Imagine taking a hot yoga class that makes you feel like you have worked out such DEEP muscles in your body that you didn't even know existed and all the toxins evaporated from your body leaving you light, sweat pouring down your face which you gave up wiping, and you are feeling proud for having shown up. And when lie there on your back, in a corpse pose, and your mind has left your body, you hear the sound of an accordion that vibrates through your body and the entire room, making you resonate with the bodies of all the other yogis who joined you for this ninety minutes of practice. And in unison with the sweet and grand sounds of accordion you hear an angelic voice singing that sounds like something between Sanskrit and Brazilian Portuguese. That was my experience with Jessica, who teaches yoga at Anuttara Yoga.
It wasn't until later that I discovered that there are yoga lessons with live music, but Jessica gave me a glimpse of it.
We photograph in Sanborn Square in downtown Boca Raton on a Thursday afternoon, and the fruits of our labor can be seen here.
She talks with a sing-songy Brazilian accent and literally FLOWS from one pose to another so fast at times that I ask her to go back to this or that pose so I can take a better shot of her.
When the sun almost gone, we decide to play with a dress or a non-yoga outfit. With the words "I have this sari, you gonna die when you see it", she goes to her card and brings out a huge basket filled with colorful outfits and dresses. When she pulls out this golden five-mile sari, my eyes start gleaming. She wraps herself in this sari and sits next to the fountain while I click away, trying to find THE SHOT. Afterwards Jessica said that her mom almost had a heart attack when she saw this photo:
Then we play with another Sari, a green one, and just as we are both about to leave, she - to catch a movie with her boyfriend and me - back home to my babies, she changes into this simple and elegant outfit of black top with open back and wide flowy blue pants. She looks like a ballerina and she confesses to me that she is also a dancer! I ask her to dance on this huge stage of Sanborn Square. And when she starts jumping up high in the air and leaping in effortless pirouettes, I realize that the next photoshoot we will be doing with this goddess will be a dance shoot!
Get to know this Goddess for yourself - attend one of her classes and see what brilliant light she shares with the world.
artistic yoga photography on the beach
Sharp rocks,
slippery rocks;
waves crashing on the huge rocks and sprinkling us with salt water;
Sharp rocks,
slippery rocks;
waves crashing on the huge rocks and sprinkling us with salt water;
fishermen.
We are intruding on their space,
the spot that had been theirs since before we got there.
And after we stay there a little, it becomes our space too and we feel at home there.
As if the rays of the still barely visible sun are warming up the cold fishermen, they smile to us and are ready to let us use their rocks, and even offer to move out of the way for the perfect shot.
Now as we leave this beach and give way to the new people who are coming to sing glory to the new day, they feel like they are stepping onto our territory because everything in our look and our stance says that this is our beach and our sea.
The city is waking up. People are walking, jogging, bulldozering around.
The sun just appeared above the horizon and the day barely began, but both my model Tamara and I feel like we did something HUGE that day. Three days before my departure for a vacation, Tamara and I put this photoshoot together in a matter of a few hours' worth of text messages (we had worked before) and the result of our collaboration you can see here.
My favorite images from our photoshoot are the ones with the city of Boca Raton in the background, the open bridge and boats going about their business. Most yoga photographs are taken in the nature setting, and they are beautiful, but my dream is to create a series of yoga photographs in the city, as much city as we can get in this part of South Florida, anyway.
A note for non-yogis out there:
Supposedly, you should not say that someone is good at yoga, but you can say that someone has a beautiful [yoga] practice. I overheard an instructor say that to one of the students after a class. :)
So, Tamara has a beautiful yoga practice. There are a lot of wonderful yoga teachers out there, but you know how it is, right? Once you make a connection and like someone's teaching style, you prefer to practice yoga with that person because you now have a relationship. It is like that for me with Tamara.
To learn more about the many talents that this woman has and a bit about how we got to know each other, please read the Goddess Interview with Tamara, in which she also shares some advice to those who are just beginning their yoga journey. Check out the video below to hear Tamara's words on what yoga means to her and what advice she gives her students.
When I was editing these photos while on vacation in Turkey, I resolved to myself to attend at least two yoga classes a week. I want to be strong and balanced, physically and emotionally, and doing yoga at home is not the best option for me because I tend to push myself more when I am in a class setting with others (not to mention actually doing yoga, when you commit to a date and time and having to go to a class to a yoga place, as opposed to saying to yourself that sometime today you are going to practice).
So I am putting yoga on my family calendar so that my husband can watch the kids and I can take care of myself so I can be the best Mommy and wife that I can be for them. And because I'm a Goddess :)