This Philly Photographer Wants to Change the Face of Yoga

And he needs your help.

How Philly Moves 2014 | Photo by JJ Tiziou

How Philly Moves 2014 | Photo by JJ Tiziou

If the word “yoga” brings to your mind an image of a thin woman twisting her body into a pretzel in Lululemon yoga pants, that’s not too surprising. Oftentimes, those are the kinds of yogis we see in media. But JJ Tiziou, a Philly-based photographer and the guy behind the How Philly Moves photo series, wants to change that — and he needs your help.

In a blog post on his website, titled “Seeking Diverse Yoga Bodies …,” Tiziou explains that he’s teamed up with the well-known yoga brand Gaiam to create photos similar to those featured in his How Philly Moves series, which showcases people of all shapes, sizes and colors dancing. The difference? This time around, they’ll be doing downward dogs.

As the photographer explains, Gaiam and he teamed up after the yoga company “realized that while their philosophy is ‘yoga for everybody,’ their imagery tends to fall into the same look of the same yoga models fitting somewhat narrow demographics.” He goes on, “Gaiam’s envisioning this as the first phase of a larger project to help change these visual stereotypes of yoga.” (Note: As Tiziou explains in his post, the deal with Gaiam is “not quite all 100% official yet; an agreement like this is a good bit more complex than my average commercial or wedding contract, and we’re working out some last little details before we can square it all away.”)

Tiziou, a yogi himself, is well aware of the lack of diversity in yoga images, saying in the post, “I’ve got big wide thighs, kinda scrawny shoulders, and all sorts of funny vasculature in my right leg from a (blessedly minor) case of KT syndrome … So yeah, bodies like mine don’t show up in those google image searches,” referring to the images people see when they search for different yoga poses online. But thanks to him, more diverse images might start popping up soon.

The photos for which Tiziou is “seeking diverse yoga bodies” — slated to be shot at Drexel during a three-day long photo shoot from July 17th through the 19th — will be available in a stock library for yoga studios and bloggers (like us here at Be Well Philly!) to pick from, hopefully adding some diversity to the way yoga and yogis are presented in mainstream culture.

And that’s where you come in! Tiziou needs real Philly yogis of all shapes and sizes to volunteer for the photo shoot. The shoot will capture small group classes, along with individuals in their favorite poses. As the sign-up form says, “This project aims to bring community members together to create a diverse set of images to remind the world that yoga is a practice that is meant to be accessible to all peoples.” What a cool thing to a be a part of, right?

You can read Tiziou’s full blog post about the project (definitely worth a read) here, and if you want to join in on the photo shoot, you can submit a form to sign up here.

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