Katya Vinkovskaya in Eka Pada Urdhva Dhanurasana (photo credit to come)
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While thinking about this art and yoga thread, I came across a quote by photographer Leah Fasten, “I’m completely blown away by the parallels between yoga and photography. What makes yoga powerful and inspiring is exactly what makes a photography practice work.”
This is poignant, as I missed my post last week, drowning in photos. I’m archiving about 3,000 negatives and slides from 1988-2003, which I recently had scanned. And then I’ll tackle the 10,000 some images shot digitally since. Adding keywords to so many images is daunting, and I find myself meandering assbook (sorry, facebook) and elsewhere more than I’d like while waiting for images to import or catalogs to save. Nothing challenges my yoga (i.e. keeping my mind focused) quite as intensely as my need to escape rote activity. Most photographers will tell you that the processing and archiving process is not the meat of the practice. I’m one of them. But like parivrtta trikonasana, it has to be done.
This has been helped today by music, though at times I become too engrossed in the music to focus on the work. Last night I saw a lecture by my friend (Bij) on women singing Bellman (watch it. Really). She mentioned how a singer reveals her vulnerability—and personality—through sharing an authentic voice. Earlier that day, on a whim, I’d asked my yoga class to notice the quality of their voices as they hummed on an out breath. To notice what the voice revealed about their mood, energy level, and general state, and how it might change later in the class. I mentioned vulnerability, as it was fairly obvious that’s where I happened to be at the moment. And hours later, my Bij was saying the same thing about her art (about which, like dance, I am blissfully ignorant). It was beautiful.
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