My friend and photographer Richard van Hoek once taught me: ‘Always look for backgrounds. You can control the person in front of it, but never the background’. Whenever I’m in a city, that’s what I do; looking for beautiful backgrounds for a photoshoot. But not just in a city, also in the forest.
To be fair, lately mostly in the forest. In the last couple of years I’ve almost only been shooting yoga pictures. Sure, sometimes during retreats or workshops, but most of my work happens in nature. And most of my work is with Sara Bigatti, as I’m only working for La Scimmia Yoga these days.
Sand dunes
So, what does all of this have to do with running? Everything. Every run I do, I’m looking around me. Are there trees that stand out or blossom? Little rivers that can form a nice background? Heath-lands or sand dunes that create beautiful, calm scenery I can shoot in? And the most important thing, how is the light? Where does it come from? Where are the shadows? Is it playing in between the trees?
Even this morning Sara and I were on a photoshoot run, because today is finally a sunny day. We have Nicola Artico and Vera Bettiol in the film studio this week, to film a beautiful moon-flow yoga course. That means we need pictures for the cover and for social media. So this morning we went out for a run, to do some location spotting in the forest close to our house. I think we found something nice.
Cartierheide
Tomorrow I’ll be on another photoshoot run. I want to go back to the Cartierheide to see if it’s getting green. If so, and if the weather will be okay at the end of this week, we hopefully can fit in another photoshoot.
