I don’t normally shoot typical “glamor” images. It’s not because I think there is anything wrong with it; I just find it more interesting to shoot images that capture an athlete’s strength, a dancer’s skill, or a yogi’s practise.
In this case we started off shooting some yoga nudes in my studio. But once we were done my friend asked me if I could create some “straight glamor” images for her. She needed some to submit to a magazine.
So we walked out to my back yar...
2021-10-11 10:24:12 +0000 UTC
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O, weary hearts! O, slumbering eyes!
O, drooping souls, whose destinies
Are fraught with fear and pain,
Ye shall be loved again!
No one is so accursed by fate,
No one so utterly desolate,
But some heart, though unknown,
Responds unto his own.
Responds,—as if with unseen wings,
A breath from heaven had touched its strings
And whispers, in its song,
“Where hast thou stayed so long!”
– from a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)<...
2021-10-11 10:21:56 +0000 UTC
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“You have to love dancing to stick to it. It gives you nothing back, no manuscripts to store away, no paintings to show on walls and maybe hang in museums, no poems to be printed and sold, nothing but that single fleeting moment when you feel alive.” ― Merce Cunningham
2021-10-03 07:50:16 +0000 UTC
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Let it be, let it be,
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be
And when the night is cloudy
there is still a light that shines on me
Shine until tomorrow, let it be
–– Paul McCartney (1969)
MEDITATION, more than anything, helps me through the hard days of life. It creates a sense of stillness in my mind, and serenity in my heart.
2021-10-03 07:49:17 +0000 UTC
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There be none of Beauty's daughters
With a magic like thee;
And like music on the waters
Is thy sweet voice to me
When, as if its sound were causing
The charmed ocean's pausing,
The waves lie still and gleaming,
And the lull'd winds seem dreaming
– from a poem by Lord Byron
2021-09-30 07:50:55 +0000 UTC
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On such a tranquil night as this,
She woke Endymion with a kiss,
When, sleeping in the grove,
He dreamed not of her love.
Like Dian’s kiss, unasked, unsought,
Love gives itself, but is not bought;
Her voice, nor sound betrays
Its deep, impassioned gaze.
It comes,—the beautiful, the free,
The crown of all humanity,—
In silence and alone
To seek the elected one.
– from a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)
2021-09-30 07:31:14 +0000 UTC
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BADDHA PADMASANA (बद्ध पद्मासन): When feeling scattered I find the Baddha Padmasana (bound lotus pose) the best for grounding my energy. It helps to rein in an overactive mind, and brings my focus back to a still, quiet place in my heart.
2021-09-29 04:35:42 +0000 UTC
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I had a friend who was a book worm, and totally obsessed with fantasy novels. I decided to create a photo for her where she is a character in one of her novels.
2021-09-27 03:54:51 +0000 UTC
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Karina is now an exceptionally gifted yogi, but I met her long before she started doing yoga.
She saw my work and appreciated the tasteful and elegant nudes I was creating. When she came to my studio I was struck by her intelligence and enthusiasm. Since she did not have any yoga skills yet, we just turned on the music and let her flow.
I loved the beautiful impromptu dance she created.
2021-09-27 03:06:43 +0000 UTC
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You call me an angel of love and of light,
A being of goodness and heavenly fire,
Sent out from God’s kingdom to guide you aright,
In paths where your spirits may mount and aspire.
You say that I glow like a star on its course,
Like a ray from the alter, a spark from the source.
You must thank your own worth for what I grew to be,
For the demon lurked under the angel in me.
– from a poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1815–1919)
PHOTO: <...
2021-09-25 19:38:59 +0000 UTC
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Capoeira is a Brazilian art form, mixing dance with martial arts. It owes its existence to sugar.
In the Indian subcontinent, sugar has been in use for over two millennia, but for Europeans, it was an expensive novelty when the Crusaders first discovered it in the middle-east around 1100s. Honey was the sweetener Europeans were familiar with.
When the Portuguese sailed out into the Atlantic and started colonizing the eastern coast of South America (a vast area that later became Br...
2021-09-25 19:36:56 +0000 UTC
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Life is a mystery
Everyone must stand alone
I hear you call my name
And it feels like home
Just like a prayer, your voice can take me there
Just like a muse to me, you are a mystery
Just like a dream, you are not what you seem
Just like a prayer, no choice your voice can take me there
Just like a prayer, I'll take you there
It's like a dream to me
– lyrics by Madonna (1989)
_
This highly controversial song was a turning point for Madonna. She wro...
2021-09-25 19:35:20 +0000 UTC
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One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every golden tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express,
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.
– from a poem by Lord Byron (1814)
2021-09-22 09:32:30 +0000 UTC
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My goal out-distances the utmost star,
Yet is encompassed in my inmost Soul;
I am my goal—my quest, to know myself.
To chart and compass this unfathomed sea,
Myself must plumb the boundless universe.
My Soul contains all thought, all mystery,
All wisdom of the Great Infinite Mind:
This is to discover, I must voyage far,
At last to find it in my pulsing heart.
– a poem by Carrie Williams Clifford (1862–1934)
PHOTO:
2021-09-20 08:37:00 +0000 UTC
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There be none of Beauty's daughters
With a magic like thee;
And the midnight moon is weaving
Her bright chain o'er the deep;
Whose breast is gently heaving,
As an infant's asleep:
So the spirit bows before thee,
To listen and adore thee;
With a full but soft emotion,
Like the swell of Summer's ocean.
– from a poem by Lord Byron (1788–1824)
2021-09-19 09:39:59 +0000 UTC
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Most people are used to expressing themselves through intonation and facial expressions. But dancers learn to express themselves with their entire body. Some of my dancer friends can say more with just their back, that others can with words.
2021-09-19 09:37:42 +0000 UTC
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Photography was preceded by painting as the preferred medium for magazine illustration.
Back in the 1930s an artist named George Petty created the classic pinup illustrations for GQ magazine. These “Petty Girls” proved very popular, and fueled GQ’s sales.
When Petty asked for a higher fee for his work, GQ terminated his contract and replaced him with a Peruvian born artist named Alberto Vargas, paying Vargas just a fraction of the money they had been paying Petty.
<...
2021-09-19 09:36:32 +0000 UTC
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Starting with the early 2000s I started to see yogis come to my photo studio in pairs and do acrobatic poses that seemed more circus than yoga. The most skilled ones were actually circus people who had taken up yoga.
Though I had photographed some partner photos similar to this as early as the late 1990s, after the turn of the millennium I started to hear a new term, “acroyoga”. This particular photo was taken 12 years ago. These two were students studying at the Cirque school in Mo...
2021-09-16 08:29:31 +0000 UTC
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Urdvha Dhanurasana (Wheel pose), and the more advanced Eka Pada Urdvha Dhanurasana (One-legged Wheel pose), are difficult yoga poses. But once we learn to rise up into them, they are a great way to warm up the whole body, and the spine in particular. It is a favorite way for many of my yoga models to warm up their backs before we do poses that involve deep backbends of any kind.
2021-09-16 08:26:58 +0000 UTC
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Hangin' on
Hangin' out
Some are hangin' upside down
A perfect world
A perfect girl
Oh - another year rolls by
I'm the king
And you're my queen
When those zombies all awake
A broken heart
A broken home
Ain't no tears upon your face
– lyrics from a song by David Byrne, one of the seminal voices of New Wave music
PHOTO: Kitti is a Hungarian model who is very adept at hanging upside down from a lyra. From a shoot we did i...
2021-09-16 08:25:06 +0000 UTC
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Ah! Up then from the ground sprang I
And hailed the earth with such a cry
As is not heard save from a man
Who has been dead, and lives again.
About the trees my arms I wound;
– from a poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950)
PHOTO: Issa is a charming athletic goddess from Sweden. We had a fun afternoon shooting when she was visiting Venice Beach in southern California some years ago.
IG: 2021-09-14 20:20:21 +0000 UTC
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All sin was of my sinning, all
Atoning mine, and mine the gall
Of all regret. Mine was the weight
Of every brooded wrong, the hate
That stood behind each envious thrust,
Mine every greed, mine every lust.
And all the while for every grief,
Each suffering, I craved relief
With individual desire,
Craved all in vain! And felt fierce fire
About a thousand people crawl;
Perished with each,—then mourned for all!
– from a poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay ...
2021-09-14 20:18:06 +0000 UTC
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‘Were not all her life but storm
Would not painters paint a form
Of such noble lines,’ I said,
‘Such a delicate high head,
All that sternness amid charm,
All that sweetness amid strength?’
Ah, but peace that comes at length,
Came when Time had touched her form.
– from a poem by Irish poet, William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)
PHOTO: Liz combining yoga with dance, as she moves to music in my Venice Beach studio.
Instagram:
2021-09-14 05:35:08 +0000 UTC
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My anguished spirit, like a bird,
Beating against my lips I heard;
Yet lay the weight so close about
There was no room for it without.
And so beneath the weight lay I
And suffered death, but could not die.
– from a poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950)
2021-09-14 05:33:02 +0000 UTC
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A time of love, a time of hate
A time of war, a time of peace
A time you may embrace, a time to refrain from embracing
To Everything (Turn, Turn, Turn)
There is a season (Turn, Turn, Turn)
And a time for every purpose, under Heaven
A time to gain, a time to lose
A time to rend, a time to sew
A time to love, a time to hate
A time for peace, I swear it's not too late
– song lyrics by Peter Seeger (1919–2014)
_________________
...
2021-09-12 03:02:39 +0000 UTC
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Lift my knees from the ground
I will put my feet down
I will dance all my prayers
Unto God
With a swing and a sway
I will do it my way
That's why I dance all my prayers
Unto God
Do I stand for peace and love?
Yes I will...express myself to God in my dance
And when I pray I feel rhythm and song
That's why I dance all my prayers
Unto God
– song lyrics by Rachelle Ferrell
PHOTO: Shawn is a yoga teacher from Santa Fe, New...
2021-09-10 01:01:26 +0000 UTC
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Last eve in dreams, I saw thee stand,
Like queenly nymphs from Fairy-land—
Enchantress of the flowery wand,
Most beauteous Isadore!
And when I bade the dream
Upon thy spirit flee,
Upturned, did overflowing seem
With the deep, untold delight
Of Love’s serenity;
Thy classic brow, like lilies white
And pale as the Imperial Night
Upon her throne, with stars bedight,
Enthralled my soul to thee!
– from a poem by Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)
2021-09-10 00:58:17 +0000 UTC
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You've walked me through fires
Pulled me from flames
If You're in this with me
I won't be afraid
When the smoke billows higher and higher
And it feels like I can barely breathe
I'll walk through these fires
'Cause You're walking with me
– lyrics by Jordan St. Cyr, Krissy Nordhoff and Micah Kuiper
PHOTO: Devyn has a beautifully muscled back and inspiring form. Watching her dance and flow to music is such a pleasure. Each time we sh...
2021-09-10 00:54:29 +0000 UTC
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I ask but one thing of you, only one,
That always you will be my dream of you;
That never shall I wake to find untrue
All this I have believed and rested on,
Forever vanished, like a vision gone
Out into the night. Alas, how few
There are who strike in us a chord we knew
Existed, but so seldom heard its tone
We tremble at the half-forgotten sound.
The world is full of rude awakenings
And heaven-born castles shattered to the ground,
Yet still our human lo...
2021-09-06 06:02:48 +0000 UTC
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As society was being transformed by industrialization in the 1800s, dance became a dominant form of mainstream entertainment. No longer reserved for just the aristocracy, dancers started performing at cafes, bars and local theaters.
Other artists, hanging out at these urban watering holes, were entranced by dancers as subjects for their own art. Painters like Edgar Degas and Toulouse-Lautrec found them a rich source of inspiration.
As a teenage immigrant I scraped a living washing...
2021-09-06 06:00:09 +0000 UTC
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