yoga superhero

September 5, 2013

Model: Carolina Vivas of Your Buddhi, Hair & Makeup: Andrea Salazar McCain, Photos: Kirk Hensler

Southern California is a great place to live. Especially in comparison to Michigan, where I grew up. All the exercise and fresh produce is like a goddamn dream come true. But it’s easy living here, and it will turn you to mush if you’re not careful. As much as I love beautiful photographs of sunsets and blue skies, I can only take so much.

According to 90% of the conversations I overhear, yoga is soft and peaceful and beautiful. And it’s no surprise that a lot of the yoga photography tries to capture that perspective.

But I’m tired of looking at backbends over the setting sun – that has no teeth to bite me with.

I practice yoga to regain my superpowers.

Along the way I spend a good deal of time thinking about how ‘stupid’ yoga is and how I want to punch myself in the face for coming back to my mat even though last time I decided half way through class that I was done with yoga — because it’s too slow and contained and all I wanna do when I’m on my mat is walk off and jump out of the second story window. But then I finish, and I walk outside and I can read strangers’ minds and feel the wind on my skin more than usual and all I want to do is eat greens and fuck someone that I love.

Yoga offers such an incredible opportunity for stylized photography. Anytime we start moving our bodies it becomes personal. We get to know ourselves and touch ourselves and love ourselves. We can incorporate our own style and flavor into the practice and then it becomes our own.

And then it grows into a monstrous powerhouse and something truly beautiful that scares our friends that used to know us in high school.

When photography meets yoga, every subject reflects this beauty in a unique way, and it’s the photographers job to catch that with the camera.

Carolina and I had been talking about collaborating on a project for a while and we finally decided on a superhero themed yoga shoot. She is beautiful, photogenic, and healthy. Because of her yoga, she can put her body in remarkable positions that create killer photographs.

I like to look through the lens and see something that I have to think about for a second because I don’t have too many memories in my head of seeing it before.

I shot these at my new studio in East Village, San Diego and couldn’t be happier with the lighting. I don’t like to edit out veins or bulges or dirt or anything that takes away from what’s really happening, so these have some light editing to color hues, saturation, and clarity.

Andrea Salazar McCain put on some awesome extensions and makeup at 6am and Carolina and I talked over the shots.