Bendable Beauty

I love doing Yogatography because it is fascinating and so very artistic seeing the limitless ways a body expresses itself.  I get to just go along for the ride and capture the essence of the mind, body, and spiritual experience.  Recently I got to shoot with Kiki Attonito, one of my wife’s yoga students, who is beautifully fierce on her mat and wanted to get some shots that capture her at her physical best.  I got about 700 shots because I got to watch her work her spineless wizardry and I had no idea what I was eventually going to get.  I just wanted to make sure that whoever saw these photos could feel her ferocity and grace at first glance.

Thankfully I had my wife Shanté the Yoga instructor there as a creative director.  She was able to support both of us with the best way to capture Kiki’s bendiness, as well as be my model for test shots for exposure...

As thorough as this shoot was, I was sweating profusely throughout because Kiki was giving her all with beautiful poses but with our limited space I was clearly missing a lot of shots because of my limitations in getting good angles and not much backdrop to work with.  Here are some of my misses or great poses but not great angles…

We eventually got into a rhythm and I got the idea during to shoot to capture the evolution of each pose and somehow I can put them together artistically.

I also began to see that if I can somehow combine the sequence of some of her poses that could be a cool artistic shot... if I can get it to work...  

Overall the shoot was about 700 shots, so it is a good thing that my Yoga wife was there for input on the peak of each pose and support me in what Kiki was looking for.  Here are a few final products!

Overall Kiki was just awesome to work with.  She was simply incredible on her mat, she was very patient as we worked out the shot with our limited space, and she has loads of energy and stamina.  I am now looking forward to see where my "Yogatography" takes me next, thank you Kiki!

Maternity At Unity on the Bay

I have done at this point quite a few maternity shoots and they are always special treats to me.  To capture a glowing mother-to-be as she symbolizes all of the love and possibilities of bringing a new life to this world.  To witness even at times the loving and connected couple as they bask in the midst of what their union created.  Well, every shoot up to this point has NOTHING on shooting my own expecting wife, Shanté, and capturing her beauty and sharing it with the world.  In many ways it is an invitation to my inner sanctum as I share my family with you all.  We shot this brief little shoot at our Spiritual Community home, Unity on the Bay, in the courtyard and little garden area they have.  This was the shoot before our official maternity shoot together with another fine photographer, Rhonda Gutierrez, who has a different style entirely than my own.

First I wanted to capture the spiritual essence for us with the impending arrival of our Little Buddy, aka Chocolate Chip or CC.  I wanted to utilize our environment at Unity and have Angels watching over Mommy and Little Buddy as our initial theme…

Next Scene I just wanted to capture Shanté in the courtyard being who she naturally is during this wonderful period, a happy and grateful Momma-to-be!

Then we made our way over to the courtyard where she was really warmed up, literally and figuratively, so I got to see my woman’s sultry eyes work my lens…

She generally always wants to add some essence of Yoga into the shoot so I let her get her Goddess on…

And we ended the day with a portrait near the fountain and I have the water as representing the essence of life coming forth…

So we wrapped up our warm and humid Miami afternoon with a shout out to our little Chocolate Chip that she is so fond of referring to him as.  For the record, we will be surprised along with the rest of the world as to what our baby’s gender will be when they arrive but for now we are rolling with the general consensus that it will be a bouncing baby boy but who knows…