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New York City Based Architecture/Interiors and Portrait Photographer

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Linked to an earlier ongoing project at AYSNYC (the video interviews mentioned in a previous post) we’ve been working on another yoga based project since the Fall of 2015, this one called the Samasthiti Project.

Samasthiti is the basic standing asana in Ashtanga. In Yoga Mala Sri K Pattabhi Jois describes the pose thusly: “To begin, join the legs together, with the heels and big toes touching, push the chest up, lower the head slightly, and stand straight, gazing at the tip of the nose; this is called Samasthiti, which means standing up in a straight line.” Sama means same or equal, sthiti means strong or steady.

Samasthiti is the first pose of Ashtanga, the start and end of each vinyasa, and in many ways the most telling of all the asana.

For the project we are photographing each student at AYSNYC in a series of 4 still photographs in Samasthiti (front, sides, and back). The students will be photographed once every 6 months over the coming years (as we are doing for the video interviews).

One of the purposes of this is for the students to have a record of themselves to look back on and document some of the changes they are all going through as their practice develops. Another is to show the public in general what “yoga bodies” and yogis actually look like, that all types of people of all ages, backgrounds, and abilities are practicing Ashtanga.

We’ve decided to shoot this project entirely in black and white, on large format 5″x7″ sheet film. That’s exciting for us as we’re old fashioned large format film camera nerds, but also have found the students are very excited to see that we’re shooting film on these huge cameras.

Also the quality of the results is quite compelling.

So for now here are 2 images from the first round of shooting:

SamasthitiSamasthiti3

 

After a couple years of talks and a couple more months of planning we’re grateful to have the chance to direct and finally start shooting this video project with the students of Ashtanga Yoga Shala NYC .

We’re about 7 interviews into the first round of the ongoing series, have about 15 more lined up in the next few weeks, and what we’ve got so far is, to me, quite beautiful and provides a rare insight into what yoga practice really is for a wide variety of students and the transformations the students go through over time.

Ultimately the interviews* will be edited into a documentary on Yoga practice in general, and more specifically Ashtanga Yoga and the work that is done at the Shala, to show a more personal and intimate look at its effects on the students’ mind and body.

Stay tuned for updates …

 

*with permission