His photos, personally, I found them beautiful to take your breath away. I do not have the competence to make a technical analysis, but, on an emotional level, they seem really powerful and evocative.

The author of the shots in question is Robert Sturman, Californian photographer, who decided to dedicate his art to yoga : he is in fact known and famous in the United States for his photos of yoga masters and practitioners intent on doing this or that asana .

A multifaceted and curious artist, he got involved in various projects concerning this discipline: he lent his camera to tell the experience of the Africa Yoga Project in Kenya or to take the yoga practice of a group of prisoners out of prison in California .

We invite you to visit his site to let yourself be fascinated by such harmony and beauty. In the meantime, enjoy this interview that you have kindly released to all readers of cure-naturali.it.

In an interview with the New York Times you told how this idea of ​​photographing yogis came about. You made a statement about it that I liked very much: "Yoga gave me the opportunity (...) to study the 'Poetry of Asanas'". What did you mean?

Yoga is wonderful to look at. All the asanas make us feel believers who aspire, yearn for something greater than themselves, to be as open and alive as possible. From an artist's perspective, this is figurative poetry at its highest stage.

I am convinced that if Michelangelo had met yogis, the streets of Rome would be studded with marbles depicting people in urdhva dhanurasana (position of the bow or wheel, ed ) or in virabadrasana (position of the warrior, ed ).

Before your project started, how did you get the inspiration to understand the artistic potential inherent in yoga?

I am an artist and practiced yoga well before dedicating my life to celebrating the beauty of asanas. I wanted to be a more centered, rooted human being and find something to hold onto to maintain excellent health, constant awareness and attention to the breath, so I chose yoga.

Some time after starting the practice, I realized how fantastic this discipline was and I started to focus my artistic work on it.

You have had some very interesting experiences in Africa and in prison. Two very different contexts, but with a single common denominator, yoga. Can you talk about it?

The artist is constantly led to operate on multiple levels. If my work can be seen as a study and a celebration of asanas, in reality I would like to make it dynamic so as to reach those who have nothing to do with yoga . I take care of humanity, above all else.

Thus, with yoga I describe this humanity, whether it is the Masai who practice at the foot of Kilimanjaro, or the prisoners in the USA. They are stories that must be told and the figurative poetry of yoga helps me to do it with a much more expressive and visual language.

If you had the "magic" power to take the perfect yoga photo, what sense would you like to convey or symbolize? Do you think any of your photos have achieved this ideal?

The perfect yoga photo, for me, represents an individual immersed in the sincerity of his heart . I would like to consider all my work as one big photo that describes this. And yes, I believe that we (myself and the people with whom I work) have succeeded.

You said that yoga has changed your life. How?

Yoga helped me find peace and, in the enchantment of tranquility, creativity was born. I love yoga. I love to unroll the mat and spend time with myself to bring out everything that blurs my eyes with a clear vision of life, which has to do with pain, sadness, joy ... with everything. Yoga makes me a better man .

Photographer Amy Goalen is also passionate about yoga ... to men! Read the interview

In the video that follows, Robert Sturman in his Santa Monica studio talks about the photographer's sincerity and secret.