Two Ways to Photograph a Yogi
A fly-on-the-wall class shoot for lululemon, then a fully directed two-light session at sunset with the same yoga teacher.
After my lululemon ambassador shoot with Balázs Csőke, which everybody ended up happy with, the store in The Woodlands opened the door for me to work with some of their other ambassadors. lululemon is more yoga- and CrossFit-oriented than triathlon, so I had a feeling it would bring some interesting work outside what I'm used to shooting (moving athletes). The first assignment, a few months ago, was Patty, a local yogi, a tremendous athlete and an ambassador here in The Woodlands at Pure Life Love.
The class shoot
Again, the assignment differed from my normal, highly stylized approach with lights, to stick to lululemon's new photo standards. We photographed Patty teaching a class, interacting with students and doing some poses herself. We found a studio, set up the class and shot much more like wedding photographers than commercial photographers: very fly-on-the-wall and non-directive. The results were interesting and non-standard for us. But watching the class inspired me to talk with Patty about another session, just to see what we could create with her athleticism and our creative eye.
The directed shoot
This time we had full control: location, time of day, lighting, posing, the time we needed and a full range of ideas to try. We found a patch of relatively green, thick grass (for early spring in Texas) with a wooded background, for the easy, serene feel that goes with the strong, peaceful calm the practice brings. Patty showed up ready to go, and between Patty, Sam and me, we got to work.
I shot most of the poses with a simple two-light setup: an Elinchrom Rotalux octabox as the main light and a large Paul C. Buff softbox with a grid as the back light. With that sandwich lighting, I could define her poses and light her face well, while the sun behind her served as another kicker and a motivating light for the effect I wanted.
We started tall and worked our way to the ground, with a few standing poses so Patty could get comfortable in front of the camera and we could dial in the lighting. She was so good at it that half the time I forgot to tell her she could stop while I made a small tweak, and she'd just keep holding the pose. It's incredible what a true yogi can do, and Sam and I were both in awe.
After the standing poses we moved to the ground and got some of my favorite shots of the evening. Starting with a headstand and moving into arm balances, we captured the shots of the night in the grass, then moved over to use the sunset for some calming poses up on a dirt bank. Shooting a 70-200mm lens at 200mm, I could flatten the image and make it look like Patty was on a mountain in the middle of nowhere rather than a mound of dirt behind a school in The Woodlands. It's all about perspective!
With a little creativity and collaboration, we got two very different looks from two very different shoots: one for lululemon and one for me.
Originally published on the Ruddock Visuals blog, May 2014. Lightly edited in 2026.