Changing the Narrative of Yoga Images

Abi Ponce Hardy is a photographer and a yoga instructor, combining her two passions to concentrate on yoga images. A love of Art and images got here first. After finishing an Art Foundation course at Edinburgh College, she set off on her travels, primarily round Europe. She travelled with a photographer, frolicked at a yoga shala within the mountains in Spain and located her ardour for images, largely taking photographs of landscapes and other people she got here throughout. She was already practising yoga by then and accomplished her yoga instructor coaching in September 2017.
Photo Credit: Octoabi
Since then, she’s been working as a contract yoga instructor and photographer in Edinburgh.
I like the yoga scene in Edinburgh. It’s so large with so many nice lecturers. There’s an ideal vibe and neighborhood however I generally wrestle to belief the scholars will include so many different nice lessons round. Abi Ponce Hardy
Abi describes beginning out as a yoga photographer as ‘a happy accident’. Her yoga instructor requested her to take some photographs of her and Abi performed a bit of shoot, which they each discovered satisfying and productive. After that, the phrase unfold, and Abi quickly had different yoga lecturers eager to get some skilled pictures of their follow. For the previous 12 months and a half, Abi has been working as Octoabi (as a result of she loves octopuses!) with yoga lecturers all through Scotland capturing their motion, ambiance and feelings.
Abi’s purchasers describe her as having the right mix of professionalism and a mild, relaxed steering. She’s by no means prescriptive about tips on how to look, what to put on: she merely needs the actual particular person to shine by means of as naturally as doable. She captures a real reflection of their yoga follow – the center of yoga, the emotions of the person. She encourages every particular person to maneuver by means of their very own follow for the primary hour of the shoot. She doesn’t direct them into explicit poses however captures the move of the follow itself. She seeks out fascinating areas for the picture shoots – city environments corresponding to cafes and parks – and permits the yoga instructor to grow to be immersed of their follow. She then appears for the second between the postures, the facial features that tells the story…
When Abi was contacted by Edinburgh Community Yoga to work on a mission with them, she was enthusiastic to get began. She’d already heard founding father of ECY, Laura Wilson, discuss yoga outreach as a part of her instructor coaching and the tales of taking yoga to folks that don’t have entry to a category left an impression. Yoga was dramatically altering lives within the coronary heart of town.
Photo credit score: Octoabi
For Edinburgh Community Yoga, capturing prime quality photographs of what we do is a crucial facet of having the ability to publicise, and subsequently encourage assist of our outreach initiatives. Good high quality photographs of outreach work are additionally helpful in serving to to alter the photographic narrative of yoga.  However, the protection of our purchasers is paramount and so having a photographer in our yoga areas was a thought of choice. Meeting Abi, who took time to attend our lessons and make everybody really feel relaxed made this course of a lot simpler and her quiet grace and non-intrusive method means we now have had no downside in photographing a few of our outreach lessons.  Lorraine Close, ECY
Over a interval of three months, Abi constructed up a financial institution of photographs to replicate and talk the work of Edinburgh Community Yoga, together with photographs of Lorraine and Laura and different lecturers concerned within the Edinburgh Yoga Festival, and photographs of a chair yoga class and the latest veterans’ retreat. Abi has discovered it an actual privilege working alongside Edinburgh Community Yoga and has gained a invaluable perception into the distinction that yoga could make to anybody and everybody. Visiting the Veterans’ retreat notably left an enormous impression.
Photo Credit: Octoabi
As a method of constant to assist Edinburgh Community Yoga as a part of its High Five Initiative, Yogamatters provided to fund this images mission, as a result of discovering the spare funds for one thing like this can be a actual wrestle.
Financially, paying for a photographer shouldn't be one thing that ECY has the revenue to do and the assist from Yogamatters by paying for Abi’s work has allowed us to have a variety of nice photographs that show our work that are a vital part of our on-line presence and which is able to hopefully assist to alter the dialogue across the ‘type of person’ that does yoga’. Lorraine Close, ECY
Here at Yogamatters, we’re excited to see Abi’s photographs of the wonderful work of Edinburgh Community Yoga. She has thrilling plans of her personal. She’s off to reside in Mexico in August to proceed her yoga and images there. But her photographs can be used lengthy after she has left Edinburgh to ‘change the photographic nature of yoga’ – what an ideal phrase! – and to convey the center of Edinburgh Community Yoga to a wider viewers.
Photo Credit: Octoabi
So thanks, Abi, get pleasure from your journey. And let’s all proceed to do all that we are able to to make sure that the sunshine of yoga shines into the darkest of locations everywhere in the world.
All photographs on this article are copyright Octoabi. For extra info, go to octoabi.com.