We have all suffered from sleepless nights. Shakespeare’s Sonnet 27 puts it into timeless words. What a wonder that lines written back in 1609 can still resonate with us today.
Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,
The dear repose for limbs with travel tired;
But then begins a journey in my head
To work my mind, when body’s work’s expired:
For then my thoughts–from far where I abide–
Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee,
And keep my drooping eye...
Poetry lovers have an ear for discovering unexpected beauty in words. But as a photographer I realized that it is not only words that create poetry. When shooting with dancers and yogis it became evident that the body itself can create poetry by its movements.
2021-07-19 04:20:09 +0000 UTC View Post
“She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes;
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.”
This is the first stanza of Lord Byron’s 1814 poem. It is probably the most famous poem devoted to beauty. While there are huge differences between cultures around the world, there appears to be a universal association of beauty with the mo...
2021-07-19 04:18:37 +0000 UTC View Post
In yoga, “bird of paradise” is a deceptively difficult pose.
In Sanskrit this pose is called “Svarga Dwijasana”. Svarga is the word for “heaven” or “paradise”, and “dvij” means “twice born”.
“Twice born” is the name given to people of higher castes in medieval India. Physical birth is the first one. The second birth refers to a spiritual one that takes place when a person undergoes an initiation ceremony, which signifies taking on the responsibilities o...
2021-07-03 02:46:47 +0000 UTC View Post
The song I came to sing
remains unsung to this day.
I have spent my days in stringing
and in unstringing my instrument.
– from a poem by Rabindranath Tagore [1861-1941]
2021-07-03 02:40:53 +0000 UTC View Post
If I were hanged on the highest hill,
Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine!
I know whose love would follow me still,
Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine!
If I were drowned in the deepest sea,
Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine!
I know whose tears would come down to me,
Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine!
If I were damned of body and soul,
I know whose prayers would make me whole,
Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine!
– poem by Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)<...
2021-07-03 02:39:26 +0000 UTC View Post
Setbacks are as inevitable as nightfall
Recoup and rise again
We are the Sun God Ra, plunging into night
to wrestle the forces of darkness
But each morning the heavens beckon
inviting us to soar high again
– Pardesi Pyara
2021-07-03 02:37:17 +0000 UTC View Post
Crystal is one of my dearest friends. Over the years we have engaged in quite a few fun adventures, including some that were borderline illegal! Looking at her serene demeanor in the photographs we create, one would never guess what a troublemaker she is!
I was devastated when she was diagnosed with stage 3 cancer not long ago. Fortunately her body is responded well to treatment and things seem to be getting better. Sending her tons of love.
Over the centuries countless painters and sculptors have used the myth of Pygmalion and his statue, Galatea, as inspiration.
Pygmalion sculpts a statue so perfect he fall in love with it. Day after day he takes offerings to the temple of Aphrodite, secretly praying to the Goddess that he may meet a woman who looks just like his sculpture. Aphrodite takes pity on him and breathes life into his statue. Pygmalion marries his living statue, Galatea.
PHOTO: Cali and...
2021-06-27 05:15:05 +0000 UTC View Post
Don’t let the fall keep you down
Listen to your heart
When you know what you want
your spirit finds the strength to rise up
and turn dreams into reality
– Pardesi Pyara
PHOTO: Kayla doing an impromptu dance in my studio. She loved improvising to the music.
2021-06-27 05:12:37 +0000 UTC View Post
Open your heart
and reach for what you need
The Universe is waiting for you
– Pardesi Pyara
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: @isssas
2021-06-27 05:07:30 +0000 UTC View Post
3500 years ago (1500BCE): In India, up in the Himalayas, a yogi walking past a Shiva statue, “All that I see is an illusion created by my senses. The true reality is that we are all one continuous, eternal field of conscious energy, called Brahman.”
1500 BCE: In Europe, “Sorry, I am busy creating “civilization” and bronze weapons. Don’t have time to think about this Universe stuff.”
450 BCE: In Greece, “I have figured out how the Universe is made. Everything is mad...
2021-06-27 05:05:37 +0000 UTC View Post
Circumstances over the past year have left me appreciating the importance of friendship in our life. In Eastern cultures, such as India where I grew up, traditions of hospitality deepen bonds of family and friendship. I am reminded of a beautiful poem by Naomi Shihab Nye, a warmly humanitarian poet with Arab-American roots:
“The Arabs used to say,
When a stranger appears at your door,
feed him for three days
before asking who he is,
where he’s come from,
where he’s ...
Lying, thinking
Last night
How to find my soul a home
Where water is not thirsty
And bread loaf is not stone
I came up with one thing
And I don't believe I'm wrong
That nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.
– from a poem by Maya Angelou
PHOTO: Portland based dancer and circus performer Luna LaBelle reclining in a lyra when she visited my studio in Venice Beach some years ago. She was so lovely to work with!
Mosh is a well known burlesque dancer. This is from a shoot we did with Sanskrit mantras written on her body.
2021-06-09 23:39:42 +0000 UTC View Post
One of the photos from back when I was still shooting on film instead of digital. I had a well known Hollywood prop maker construct several sets of wings for me and I did a whole series of nudes with wings.
This was long before Victoria’s Secret started to use wings in their lingerie fashion shows. Some of my friends claim it was my photos, seen by one of VS art directors at an art exhibit in Los Angeles, that gave the company the idea for using wings in their fashion shows. It appear...
2021-06-09 23:38:02 +0000 UTC View Post
Filmmaker Lina Esco made a documentary back in 2014 called “Free the Nipple” where she filmed herself running topless through New York.
Her film, and the publicity it generated, kicked off a worldwide phenomenon of women protesting laws banning showing of women’s breasts in public.
According to Esco, it’s not about titillation. "You can pay to see women topless in porn videos and strip clubs, but the moment a woman owns her body, it’s shameful,” said Esco. “Women sho...
2021-06-09 23:34:58 +0000 UTC View Post
But if, through all the livelong day,
You've cheered no heart, by yea or nay --
If, through it all
You've nothing done that you can trace
That brought the sunshine to one face--
No act most small
That helped some soul and nothing cost --
Then count that day as worse than lost.
–– George Eliot (pen name of Mary Ann Evans) (1819–1880)
PHOTO: We all deserve to have a good friend in our life, that is there to lift us, not...
2021-06-09 23:26:45 +0000 UTC View Post
Astonishes me that people who have never meditated before will sit down and attempt to meditate for thirty minutes or an hour. That's a long time meditate! Imagine a person who has never exercised in their life attempting to run a marathon on day one!
When attempting to hold our monkey mind still and keep it from jumping from thought to thought, even five minutes feels like an eternity.
Growing up in India I learnt: To succeed at meditation, start small. Aim for consistency of pra...
2021-06-09 23:24:18 +0000 UTC View Post
I launched this Patreon account two months ago, in the last week of March 2021. Since then I have made over 100 posts. I have shared well over 200 photographs, all presented uncensored as they are meant to be seen (unlike my postings over at IG)!
I have had the privilege of seeing hundreds of my photographs published in print magazines over a decade. In keeping with that I strive to make sure each image I share here is publication worthy. No fluff, no filler, no "seconds". Each on...
2021-05-28 18:02:37 +0000 UTC View Post
I am not very social when I am at the gym. I like to make the most of my time there so you’d see me just working out hard, head down, sweating away, totally focussed on my workout.
People, I guess, picked up on my vibe so I was not used to folks coming up and talking to me.
But one day as I was on a treadmill a young woman sauntered over and struck up a conversation. I could tell from her clothing that she was one of the trainers at the gym. So I figured she had come over to pit...
2021-05-24 04:29:34 +0000 UTC View Post
These photos are from years ago when I had just started exhibiting my Body as Temple nudes in art shows around the Los Angles area.
I went to a dance performance in Hollywood and they had an after party later where the audience mingled with the dancers. Laurel was one of the dancers that evening. She was the shortest dancer in the troupe but I was mesmerized by her emotional performance.
While nibbling on canapés and sipping white wine I was backing up from the crowded food table...
2021-05-24 04:26:45 +0000 UTC View Post
COW FACE POSE: It is an odd name for a yoga pose, but it is a great stretch for tight shoulders.
Most yogis can’t even get their hands to meet the first time they try it. Most have to use a strap to try and get the hands as close as possible. Then with patient practice they inch them closer and closer over the months, or even years.
It is important to understand that we are all built anatomically differently and some poses are going to be much more difficult for some than ...
2021-05-24 04:24:01 +0000 UTC View Post
People often ask me how I find my subjects. Mostly they find me! And mostly by word of mouth. But sometimes it is a random encounter.
Some friends of mine had opened a wholistic health clinic in Santa Monica and were celebrating its one year anniversary. I met Suki at the celebration.
We were both admiring the soothing water sounds of the feng shui water fountain that greeted the guests as they enter. As we chatted we observed how the rest of the clinic was quintessentially Califo...
2021-05-24 04:22:09 +0000 UTC View Post
I heard from some of you how much you loved the “Back Beauty” post. So I decided to share a bigger selection of photographs from that shoot.
These images were taken on one of my early visits to Houston, before I had moved to the area. Liz and her partner we so welcoming; I had a very enjoyable afternoon visiting with them. Afterwards we went and had a delicious Mexican meal.
___
APPLE BOXES: By the way, those cool looking wooden boxes Liz is balancing on are called “Ap...
2021-05-19 17:06:59 +0000 UTC View Post
Now a days even Indians pronounce “Yoga” as we do here in the US. But it wasn’t always like that. The original Sanskrit pronunciation is better represented by “Yoge”, as it rhymes with “robe”, as in bathrobe.
When pronounced that way we can more easily see yoga’s resemblance to the word “yoke”, as in yoking an ox to a cart. “Yoga” refers to the philosophical idea that we are all “yoked together’’, that we are all one.
This similarity between “yoge...
2021-05-17 01:15:04 +0000 UTC View Post
There is a whole field of photography called “Glamor Photography” (or “Glamour” in UK!) comprised of pretty women in mildly sexual poses. It is the mainstay of many “Men’s” magazines, calendars that hang in mechanic shops, and a disproportionate number of IG accounts with huge followings.
A friend recently mentioned that women are obviously comfortable disrobing around me so why don’t I shoot more Glamor Photography?
It’s not because I think it is bad or wrong. I...
2021-05-17 01:13:27 +0000 UTC View Post
My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.
– from a poem by William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
2021-05-17 01:11:15 +0000 UTC View Post
At midnight in the month of June,
I stand beneath the mystic moon.
An opiate vapour, dewy, dim,
Exhales from out her golden rim,
The lady sleeps! Oh, may her sleep,
Which is enduring, so be deep!
Heaven have her in its sacred keep!
This chamber changed for one more holy,
This bed for one more melancholy,
– from a poem by Edgar Allan Poe
PHOTO: It is reasonable to think that a person doing nude modeling would be an e...
2021-05-17 01:09:20 +0000 UTC View Post
Stop running
from place to place
Stop running
from task to task
Stop running
from thought to thought
Only when we learn to sit still
the greatest journey begins
– Pardesi Pyara
PHOTO: Issa is a charming athletic goddess from Sweden. We had a fun afternoon shooting when she was visiting Venice Beach in southern California couple years ago.
2021-05-17 01:06:43 +0000 UTC View Post