Many of my yoga photography clients are newly qualified teachers who have just completed their 250 hour yoga teacher training programme. Vittoria has just completed her training with Stretch Yoga (based in East London) at the Suryalila Retreat Centre in Southern Spain. She commissioned me for a session because she needed photos of herself for a website as she is shortly to teach a retreat in Italy. It’s funny how many of us only have photos on our iphones of ourselves, rather than anything professional - even portrait photographers are guilty of this! During our shoot we realised that we knew many of the same people (some of which I have also photographed) because of the Stretch yoga retreat I did last year in Ibiza!
Yoga photography in Notting Hill
All these photos were taken around Vittoria’s Notting Hill home and in her communal private gardens, which made a gorgeously lush, green backdrop in early autumn. We also wandered out into Westbourne Grove to take some headshots on the street, which are probably my favourite photos from our shoot - the early morning sun was just coming through and there is a real sense of place.
Headshots for yoga instructors
As always in my shoots, we made sure to take plenty of headshots, as well as photos of Vittoria in various poses - it’s essential that people looking at her website can get a feel for who she is, rather than what poses she can do. On that note, you can see from the selection of photos here that our goal was to focus on simple and approachable poses, rather than anything particularly complicated and ‘advanced’, which reflect Vittoria’s practice and personality at this moment in time. Here’s a few of my favourite shots from our session!