Tag Archives: photos

Another DC yoga studio bites the dust

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My friend and ded­i­cated Ash­tangi Don­a­van Wil­son sent me a mes­sage today:

David Ingalls is shut­ting down AYC (Ash­tanga Yoga Cen­ter, for those not in the know). The doors close on May 31. The stu­dio space near Amer­i­can Uni­ver­sity is too expen­sive. Keith Moore (long-​​time AYC teacher) found another loca­tion. The new loca­tion is unof­fi­cially in the MacArthur Boule­vard area (DC). The ten­ta­tive new name is the Ash­tanga Yoga Stu­dio. Moore has not signed a lease. How­ever, the odds pretty good to solid­ify this new loca­tion. All of this (new space and loca­tion) is up in the air. AYC clos­ing is not.

What a bum­mer! And to think, I have not had a chance to take a class there — though I do have until the end of May. What did in AYC was what made it a con­ve­nient place to prac­tice yoga — it was right next to the Amer­i­can University/​Tenlyetown Metro sta­tion, right across from Whole­Food. You could fit in a Mysore class before pick­ing up a bagel and head­ing to work. But eco­nom­i­cally, the rent got too high at that prime loca­tion. Let’s hope that all the instruc­tors and stu­dents find an appro­pri­ate space for their practice.

I should also under­score that the AYC web­site dis­tin­guished itself for exquis­ite pho­tog­ra­phy of yogis and yogi­nis absorbed in their prac­tice. As some­one who has dab­bled in that dark art, I know how dif­fi­cult it is to cap­ture the instance, but when you do, it’s magic.

Post­script: I should also note that DC is not the only place where yoga stu­dios can become unvi­able com­mer­cially: In New York City, Om Yoga will shut down at the end of June because the lease was not renewed. Om Yoga was founded and run by Cyndi Lee, a high-​​profile yoga instruc­tor and pio­neer in fus­ing yoga with Bud­dhism. The owner of the build­ing did not want a ygoa stu­dio on the premises.

A yoga blog with a personal compass

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For the past cou­ple of weeks, I’ve wanted to give a big pointer to Carol Horton’s Think Body Elec­tric, cit­ing just one post, Yogis, Ascetic, and Fakirs: Fas­ci­nat­ing his­tor­i­cal images of India that I don’t pre­tend to under­stand, but I could men­tion any num­ber of posts over the past year. In this par­tic­u­lar entry, she runs through a num­ber of pho­tographs and draw­ings from India, and reg­is­ters her own emo­tional reac­tion to these pho­tos of “non-​​Western” prac­tices. She has all the ana­lyt­i­cal skills of an aca­d­e­mic, but never loses her per­sonal (moral, eth­i­cal, what­ever) com­pass.  I was struck by the fol­low­ing comments:

In other words, all of the cul­tural ref­er­ents that were hard-​​wired into me at an early age were Judeo-​​Christian. This is not good or bad; it just is. But it is significant.
I can work to under­stand Hin­duism, tra­di­tional yogic aus­ter­i­ties, or what­ever. But it’s not encoded into my cul­tural DNA.
Even in today’s highly glob­al­ized, mulit-​​culti world, I still feel very con­scious of being a Westerner.
I know where she’s com­ing from because I feel much the sim­i­lar way, hav­ing been a mul­ti­cul­tural jour­nal­ist who came to yoga late in life.

Vacations with Hurricane Earl

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Last Sat­ur­day, my wife and I set off for a late vaca­tion in the Caribbean. We had hoped that we would be able to avoid hur­ri­canes and foul weather. The first two days, the sun was out and we spent some great time on the beach.

On Mon­day, we woke up to strong winds, sheets of rain and a grow­ing aware­ness of what we had got­ten our­selves into.

Photo: wife takes video of bad weather from balcony

Hur­ri­cane Earl sweeps across our beach front on St. Thomas, VI

Our resort was located right on the ocean, but on the lee­ward side of the island so the full force of the storm did not hit us. We were also shel­tered by hills. The resort man­age­ment switched over to their own power gen­er­a­tor even before the storm hit.

Photo: swimming pool and palms trees blown by hurricane winds

Hur­ri­cane Earl lashes the pool at our resort on St. Thomas, VI

Shortly after I took these shots, the wind shifted and came straight at us. Our bal­cony began to fill with water. Dark­ness came and we could not see how fiercely the winds were blow­ing, only hear their howl­ing. That was the most intim­i­dat­ing moment. Con­tinue read­ing →

Anusara’s John Friend leads a class

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Share photos on twitter with Twitpic I was fol­low­ing John Friend’s twit­ter­ing and came across a link to this shot. Twit­pic has sev­eral other shots of massed yogis in for­ma­tion. Awe-​​inspiring gath­er­ings that project chan­neled prana. Friend is on tour, cur­rently in Canada, putting on work­shops for Anusara yoga teachers.

As a hack pho­tog­ra­pher, I am fas­ci­nated by shots of yoga prac­tice, both the group sync and the indi­vid­ual pose. John — or his peo­ple — have many oppor­tu­ni­ties. It’s a lot harder than it looks because the pho­tog­ra­pher has to cap­ture the instance of grace in poor, indoor light­ing, and fre­quently in movement.

Questioning what it takes for good photos

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Dana Cohen in
Dana Cohen, an itin­er­ant yoga teacher and cre­ative imag­i­neer, in Kukku­tasana or cock pose

When I bought my cam­era last week, I had a twinge of hes­i­ta­tion, even reluc­tance, and it was not just because it was almost four hun­dred dol­lars more on my credit card. Get­ting into seri­ous pho­tog­ra­phy means that I have to devote time to learn­ing how to use the unique tech­nol­ogy encased in SLR cam­eras. Sure, with default set­tings, I can take dra­mat­i­cally bet­ter pho­tographs than with a point & shoot cam­era, like my Sony Pow­er­shot A630. But when I get into more chal­leng­ing shoot­ing envi­ron­ments, like inside stu­dios, then it becomes more com­pli­cated to get the right set­tings. I’ve been wing­ing it so far, and then hop­ing to cor­rect any flaws in light­ing, hue, con­trast or sat­u­ra­tion while retouch­ing the dig­i­tal pho­tos on my com­puter. That brings me to the sec­ond cause for reluc­tance, learn­ing how to manip­u­late dig­i­tal pho­tos in Adobe Pho­to­Shop (for seri­ous professionals) — or Corel Paintshop Pro (for ama­teurs who wanted a full-​​featured appli­ca­tion) in my case, at least for the time being — with­out turn­ing them into gar­ish reflec­tions of the real thing.

I don’t think that it’s excep­tion­ally hard to get the basics of pho­tog­ra­phy: it just requires set­ting some time (hours, days, man-​​years?) aside to read the man­ual, sup­ports sites, pho­tog­ra­phy blogs, etc. and then apply the skele­ton of a knowl­edge sys­tem while the ideas are still fresh in the head. I fre­quently will do the research, but then not find the time to apply the tips and tricks soon enough to con­sol­i­date the les­son. With a num­ber of pend­ing projects and to-​​do lists, I don’t need another major task, but it looks as if I have done just that.

This became appar­ent to me after my lat­est round of shoot­ing yoga poses at Thrive Yoga. Using my son’s Nikon D90, I was able to shot more richly detailed pho­tos and not have to worry about being out of focus or poorly lit. But once I got back home and worked with the mate­r­ial, I began to see short­com­ings and flaws. First, rather than using the built-​​in flash, a sep­a­rate, stronger flash bounced off the ceil­ing would have pro­duced much bet­ter light­ing. Sec­ond, another lens or two would have allowed me to have more vari­ety in my angles and scope. Those two points can add nearly $350-​​500, min­i­mum, to the price tag of this “hobby.”

As to the ini­tial hur­dles of get­ting on firm foot­ing with manip­u­lat­ing the dig­i­tal files, I prob­a­bly should have a cou­ple of chats with my son, Matt, who has gone well beyond the ini­tial steps of mas­ter­ing dig­i­tal photography.

The U.S. annointment of yoga

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Can there be any doubt now of yoga’s cul­tural influ­ence among fash­ion elites? A photo spread in Van­ity Fair mag­a­zine called Spir­i­tual Stretch­ing:

No won­der Amer­i­cans are Down­ward Dog­ging by the mil­lions: yoga can work won­ders on mind, body, and soul. In the U.S., 16.5 mil­lion peo­ple prac­tice it, and it’s thus become a coast-​​to-​​coast, Zeitgeist-​​defining phe­nom­e­non as well as a multi-​​billion-​​dollar indus­try. In these out­takes from the yoga port­fo­lio fea­tured in our June issue, Michael O’Neill pho­tographs the movement’s lead­ing fig­ures, from Christy Turling­ton and Sting to Rod­ney Yee and B.K.S. Iyengar.

The irony is only made more bit­ing by the beauty of O’Neill’s pho­tographs of yoga lumi­nar­ies and celebrities.

The James River valley as backdrop

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I don’t think my wife is going to like the pho­to­graph because we had some funny things hap­pen­ing with the shad­ows on our faces, but the point is the mar­velous view from the Lotus Con­fer­ence Cen­ter at Yogav­ille. On the left, you can see the Light of Truth Uni­ver­sal Shrine or Lotus Tem­ple, a white dome struc­ture. We missed the full fall foliage by about a week, I think, but the vista was still breath­tak­ing. I am sure that Kim­berly will pro­vide bet­ter shots of the group as a whole.

To make up for the bad light­ing in the first photo, here’s a pic of my wife at the gate­way of the LOTUS Tem­ple. It’s part of the Satchi­dananda Ashram or Yogav­ille. It’s a large and active com­mu­nity that has affil­i­ates around the United States and the world. Satchi­dananda, the found­ing holy man, died two years ago and is buried here. The motif of tem­ple archi­tec­ture as a wed­ding cake runs through Hindu cul­ture — see the Art of Liv­ing Foundation’s Ban­ga­lore tem­ple, for instance. I’m not sure what it means.

Blogging from Lotus position

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Alan Little’s Weblog rep­re­sents every­thing I’d like to achieve with this weblog. His day­time job is com­put­ers. He also brings some great pho­tog­ra­phy skills to the ser­vice of his yoga. It’s a priv­i­lege to be given this win­dow into his prac­tice, espe­cially when he’s been taught by Pat­tabhi Jois, the Ash­tanga mas­ter, in India. There’s a lot to explore off of his site.

Alan also has enough of his other inter­ests (music, his first child) that you see how his yoga inte­grates with the rest of his life.