Around the Lens - Painting With Prana (session 3)

My headlamp died 5 minutes after leaving the truck.  It took a few minutes for our eyes to adjust, but enough blue light from the nearly full moon filtered through the thick canopy of old growth coastal cedars and spruce for us to navigate our path.  Caroline and I made our way down a line of bare wood in the center of the old boardwalk, moss colonizing the flanks and cracks between the rotting planks, the forest reclaiming what was rightfully theirs.  

The low tide beach was bathed in silver moonlight with gentle whitewash imbricating synchronistically up and down the shoreline.  Traversing the open expanse of sand, an unsettling, fresh set of wolf tracks carved their way down the beach.  Violent turns, impossibly long strides, and claw marks skidding to a stop told of a frantic chase.  The paws were the same size as Caroline’s hand, so we hoped it had already caught its dinner.

Clouds raced past, obscuring the moon only to unveil its luminosity again as we set up for the shoot.  Caroline climbed up to a tiny volcanic tidal island topped with waxy salal and a single stunted spruce tree permanently directed east from relentless North Pacific winds.  The shrubbery proved to be an annoyance, blocking out crucial light, so it took a few different angles to achieve any decent results.  

Happy with our tree island, Caroline spotted some interesting composition near a deeply cut channel rushing with foamy water.  As we began to shoot, a large set of waves crashed onto the rock pillars behind me and heaved into the surge channel beside Caroline.  Only barely, we managed to stay out of harms way and made it out mostly dry with some cool photos.  

Our last set up took us back to the expansive beach from which we came.  The rising tide had appropriated a decent amount of real estate, but still left us with lots of sand to continue experimenting with the different forms of yoga.  Some of the creations which appeared were a salmon head in a bubble, a uterus with legs, a Japanamation superhero, and my favorite pictured here - the sauntering elephant.  

- April 2016

*Painting With Prana is an ongoing personal project documenting the movement of yoga through light painting in beautiful outdoor spaces.  A gallery of images from the study will be appearing on my website in the coming weeks.

Around the Lens - Painting with Prana (session2)

The newly constructed, mostly finished trails of Tonquin beach park are all starting to look the same in the rapidly fading light.  Even though there should still be an hour of twilight left on this clear Pacific North West evening, the thick mossy canopy of Sitka Spruce and ancient Cedar trees mask all but a trickle of light - even on a sunny day.  Nicole is leading us on a gravel trail that traverses steep black volcanic headlands to a pocket beach which should have enough sand exposed at low tide for our little project.  

This is the second shooting session of my Painting With Prana Project where the goal is to get visually stunning images that capture the movement of yoga in unique locations.  We emerge out of the forest onto a stage bright enough to set up our studio which consists of small speakers, a yoga mat, and a camera set for long exposures.  Nicole warms up, Caroline picks the music, and I frame my shot with Echachis and Vargas Islands soaking up the afterglow of the summer sun.

Surprisingly, there is still a fair bit of light around so dialing in an exposure suitable to capture enough of the low powered lights attached to Nicole’s hands.  We start off with some ground sequences, then to standing vinyasas which take on a more geometric look.  This is another one of the goals - to see the difference in patterns and light trails left by the yogis and their chosen sequences.  This is a totally new sensation for Nicole as she has never practiced yoga in almost complete darkness.  Especially on a remote beach with no one around.

I climb up a cliff on the far side of the little beach for a different vantage and decide on taking a 25 minute exposure to create trails left by the stars.  Unknowingly everything we brought has slowly been colonized by an army of sand fleas, so we have to eat snacks standing up.  

When we start up again, the theme changes a bit as one of Nicole’s new favorite songs “Hideaway” come on and it turns into more of a dance session as opposed to pure yoga.  On camera this looks like a giant glowing chandelier!  After two hours we decide to call it a night and leave our beach to navigate the web of trails back to my truck and onto The Wolf in the Fog for boozy coffees and celebratory cake for dessert.

- August 2014

Around the Lens - Painting With Prana

It’s hard to know how a woman will react when you ask her to meet you at a construction site at the end of an abandoned residential street just after dark, but Julia’s unwavering voice said simply - “Sure!”  It also helps that I have known Julia for years.

The point of our meeting in this obscure location is for my ‘Painting With Prana' project.  With traditional yoga photography, I always felt a disconnect with a lot of the outdoor shots.  I get the idea, but seeing a girl doing a handstand on wet boulders near a stream-although impressive, seems counter intuitive to me.  In my mind, yoga is all about movement, flow, and a spirituality which transcends the merely physical act - all of which are very difficult to convey through still photography.  

Jules is there just before I am, we discuss outfit choices and then gingerly make our way across the construction site in the encroaching darkness.  Our destination - a decrepit dock with loads of character (and splinters) - is a spot where I have spent every warm lunch hour for the past year and a half (my previous job was a foreman on a large residential build).  The uneven platform is mostly submerged in a thick green bed of rough horsetail reeds, and takes a short hop to get onto.  

As the blue/green glow of dusk starts to fade from the sky, we devise a plan of potential shots and sequences to try and capture the moving form of yoga.  I attach two small LED lights to the palms of her hands, manually dial in the exposure and focus on my camera, and remotely trigger the shutter as Julia starts to paint the sensor with sun salutations.  It takes a few tries to get the correct exposure with the right amount of movement, but soon the photos start to take shape.

With the technical side figured out, we are free to get creative with different angles, sequences, and even adding a little bit of the Jane Fonda workout in for good measure.  There was a lot of laughing, a bit of rapping.  Another goal of my shoot was accomplished by letting the unique personality of the yogi shine through their movements which was very apparent with Julia’s unique blend. 

Painting with Prana is an ongoing personal project featuring some of my favourite yogis in unique locations.  The project is always evolving and changing, so I’m not really sure what the end result will be.  For now, I am just enjoying the act of creating and collaborating on a technique which seems to be new to this discipline. 

- August 2014