Yoga and Photography

Nah, you never feel restless, are always in perfect harmony with people and your surroundings and your body can take it all. Seriously, being on an shooting assignment can be one of the most exhausting tasks. Depending on the climate you’re soon covered in sweat, full of dust and tired — or you have to wait for hours to finally get that light or motif for the shot. Good photography never comes easy. Good photography can be pretty stressful and exhausting. That’s where this topic can come in pretty handy: yoga for photographers.

You may be laughing, and who’s still lugging around that bulky DSLR gear with mega zooms? Hey this the age of convenience, convergence and miniaturization! Still, meet photographic entrepreneur Vanessa Joy, creator of Yoga for Photographers, who asks:

Are you a photographer with an achy back? Painful neck? Eye Strain? Tired easily on the job?

Sounds like the exactly right questions, doesn’t it.

You can’t just buy lighter gear and expect to beat all these physical nuisances that might come with the job. Yes it matters whether you carry a D4 or an OM-D. In the end, however, the decision between heavier and lighter gear is more of an ultimate vs. very good quality and a less vs. more convenience.

Your body needs to be taken good care of anyways, no matter what gear your working with. That’s where yoga can come in, because as photographers, says Vanessa Joy, we’re constantly either hunched over a computer or hunched over taking pictures while holding heavy camera gear.

Better stretch, strengthen and realign your back, hips, neck, shoulders, she says, and give your body what it needs to be a photographer.

And don’t forget, yoga’s breathing exercises are not only a tool to control stress. They might also be a tool to let you hold that camera firmly and steadily even at 1/10th of a second. That’s right, proper controlled breathing as a form of image stabilization.

Isn’t it strange, we’re concerned about minuscule noise at pixel level. But we ignore our body, the tool that’s at least as important for the photographer as the gear.

Seriously, I’m not joking. Don’t underestimate the power of body control.

Vanessa Joy offers a $49 Special 4-Morning Course teaching simple, easy moves by debunking some myths about yoga. It’s not so much the body, but the mind that has to be flexible.