Britt Overmars – A Yoga Instructor With Balance And Flexibility

I’ve photographed around 10 yoga photoshoots and portraits in a professional capacity, and they’re honestly among my favorites.  The reason isn’t the warm climate and lack of lack of outdoor variables or because yoga studios are generally designed to be clean and calm environments.  I enjoy photographing yoga because the posing structure is pre-determined by yoga positions themselves and because they often involve balance and good posture.  The big trick with photographing portraits for yoga practitioners is to keep even lighting on the subjects.  Conventional lighting has a focus on the top of the subject (around the face and head of course) and more of a feathered drop-off toward the bottom of a subject.  Those rules don’t apply when your subject is upside down for instance.  Then there’s the consideration that lights need to move up, down and in between depending on the height of the pose (whether it’s on the ground, at waist level or a full standing pose).  Finally, some poses have a subject facing left and others have them facing toward the right.  It’s most effecting to photograph yoga practitioners in groupings where all the lower right, mid right then standing right images are taken first, then lower left, mid left and standing facing left images are taken.  Regardless, this particular photo shoot was very laid back.  Conducted on the hardwood floors of the St. Andrew’s Community center, we photographed this yoga shoot for Brittany’s dynamic yoga classes where most of them take place.  Relaxing music, moving through pre-determined poses and a focus on breathing; what a relaxing way to spend a rainy Sunday morning!

Brit Overmars became a certified yoga teacher 9 years ago, graduating from Semperviva in Vancouver, BC. She teaches various forms of yoga ranging from Seniors yoga to Power yoga. But her main focus of teaching is Kundalini yoga – a powerful practice that targets strengthening the nervous and immune system and focuses on detoxifying by using specific breathing techniques and movements.

You can learn more about Brittany’s yoga classes here!