Outdoor Yoga Photography Project

The yoga in true nature yoga photography project is an outdoor yoga photography story that explores the practice of yoga through reconnecting to outdoor landscapes.

The Yoga Photography Project

Join The Bergreens while we photograph and interview yogis who take the time to explore the outdoors, practice yoga in nature, and reconnect with their true nature. Check out their stories below. Profits of art sales from the True Nature Tribe will be donated to the Conservation Alliance.

yoga in nature

Fundraiser Events

Thanks to everyone that came our to our community fundraiser events to celebrate yoga, nature, community, and connection. We loved sharing our story and our work with you while raising money for The Conservation Alliance.

May 31st, 2018 in Visalia, CA at The Space

August 31st, 2018 in Denver, CO at Arcteryx Denver

In addition to our amazing hosts, we are grateful to our sponsors, the other Conservation Alliance members who helped make the events possible by donating raffle items and beer: Arcteryx Denver, New Belgium, Deschutes Brewery, Smartwool, Prana, and Sea to Summit.

yoga in nature

About the Project

Introducing the Project

We are the Bergreens, a husband and wife photography team. The Outdoor Yoga Project contain a story, starting with our own, that connects fellow yogis and lovers of the outdoors on a path to discover our True Nature. By immersing ourselves in the natural world we attempt to strip away anything artificial or material in order to reconnect with what remains.

We are turning off distractions in order to find presence and awareness in the surrounding world. For us, photographing yoga poses in nature started out as a personal experience. As a yoga teacher and practitioner myself, I often feel called to practice in the places I love most.

When we arrive somewhere beautiful and I cannot express with words how it makes me feel, I can express it with my body (not to mention, I often have a need to stretch after a long car-ride). Nature makes me feel strong and powerful but, at the same time, only a small piece of this vast world.

meditation for creativity

Nature

A good view is the surest way to clear my mind and find peace. Only in a meadow do we see an adult skip or in the forest do we see someone running without cause. Numerous great thinkers have seen the power of the natural world to teach us about life, meaning, and love.

Sitting amongst the trees helps put into perspective our part in this world. Before man built cities, man found the shelter of trees. Before Netflix, we watched the sunset. Now, trash guards the edges of the road and the paths that lead to the great beyond.

Some days we can’t see the forest through the litter. And even if we could, we don’t have time. We’re too busy. An idea gradually developed.

yoga in nature

The Idea

We would photograph yoga poses in nature. We would create beautiful images in natural light where the yoga pose is enhanced by the beauty of nature. We just had to find some people willing to participate in a yoga photoshoot.

As you’ll see in images from the project, it’s not about advanced poses. It’s more important to feel confident than to do something crazy. As a yoga photographer I want to capture the beauty of the yoga pose and part of that beauty is the individual who gives the pose personality.

Our yoga photography is about flow, beauty, passion, inspiration, and nature. They’re about connection and presence. The yoga poses aren’t as important as what they mean or how they make us feel.

Photographing Yoga

And yet, we discovered that the best yoga poses for yoga photography are the expansive ones. A good yoga picture makes you viewer feel the balance or the movement. My favorite pictures from each yoga photoshoot have the perfect combination of pose and landscape.

yoga for creativity

Flow

Hobbies or passions that we are drawn to because of the access they give us to flow, are indispensable. Research supports my assessment that healing exists in activities during which we find flow; that mental state in which we are fully immersed in an activity. Both yoga and nature have the power to rejuvenate, restore, and refuel.

I see a common thread and theme of reconnecting people with their heart, their soul, their purpose, their home, and dare I say, their God. I am not an expert in all, let alone any of these subjects, but I am interested in the stories.

Let’s start with ours.

amy ippoliti yoga outdoors

When nature calls… and tells you to quit

It all started on an ice-climbing trip to the east side of the Sierras. The day started like any other Saturday with friends like mine. I woke up in a tent sandwiched between two not-so-girly girls, attempted to thaw my frozen contact solution, and bundled up for another adventure. It was my first time ice-climbing and let’s just say that my technique was all wrong.

I may or may not have cried and vowed to never go ice-climbing again. Of course, that was a lie, though I didn’t know it at the time. And that’s where I met Marc.

After that weekend, it took awhile for Marc to ask me out on a date. He figured that since we were working together it wasn’t a good idea. Little did he know what our future held!

amy ippoliti yoga outdoors

The Path

We were both studying engineering during the week and heading out on adventures every weekend. Our friends were either terrible influences (distracting us from our studies) or great at teaching us what our priorities should be. After an engineering internship in Seattle, a backpacking trip along the West Coast Trail, and a visit to Mt. Rainier, I decided to move to the Pacific Northwest.

Marc graduated a year later and soon we were both engineers in Seattle, engaged to be married, and trying to still fit in adventures whenever we could. The winter was hard on us as we would head off through traffic in opposite directions driving to work in the dark and driving back home in the dark.

Unless we happened to have lunch outside, and it wasn’t raining, our days often passed by without us seeing the sun. Weekend plans would fall apart when rain made mountains inaccessible. Our time together dwindled as work became our new number one.

california yoga

What to Do About It

The adventures we loved, and that led us to fall in love, were steadily growing out of reach. I had a stable engineering job and was earning a steady income, but I wasn’t happy. Some people told me to change my attitude, others welcomed me to the real world, and a few close friends asked me what I was going to do about it.

I remember looking ahead at what my future held if I stayed on the same path. I wanted to quit, to do something else, do go in a completely different direction. I agonized over the decision eventually realizing that despite the societal definition of success, expectations imposed on me by everyone including myself, and the years dedicated to my chosen career, I still had a choice.

While others in the same position might have chosen a different path, rewarded with a financial stability that I will never know, I had to do something about it. Fortunately, Marc agreed because he knew exactly how I felt. We believed that we could design our lifestyle around the things we were passionate about.

mountain yoga

We didn’t want to have one last adventure; we wanted our life and our love to be an adventure.

Those beliefs sprung from our experiences with both yoga and nature.

We left the rugged beauty of the Pacific Northwest for the reliable sunshine of California. We left the reliable future of engineering for the unknown journey of self-employment. We left the stress of the big city for the simplicity of a small town. Now we spend our days in our office (where we sit 5 feet apart despite Marcs hesitation towards office romance), at the yoga studio where I teach, and outside shooting photos chasing the stories that inspire us.

I can’t say that people that know me as an engineer treat me the same as the ones who know me as a yoga teacher. Sometimes I don’t even recognize myself when my students tell me how calm or Zen I am. I have to correct myself when I think, “that’s not me” and change it to “that wasn’t me, but maybe now it is.”

Yoga Journey

My yoga journey started with a physical need. As my posture hunched, shoulders climbed towards my ears, and back problems put me out of commission for days at a time, yoga showed me that physical pain is not necessarily a requirement of life. I can actually feel good. And I definitely notice when I miss a day.

I became aware the physical impacts of stress and learned ways to deal with it. After going to yoga long enough, I stopped noticing the cues about body alignment and started hearing those ideas about listening to my body and my breath, without judgment. I started developing awareness of my thoughts and emotions as well as ways to clear my mind.

Eventually, I started to listen to some of those crazy yoga ideas like energy and Heart Center and finding True Nature. A practice that I started to better myself began to teach me how to love myself. It was back to basics: breathe, walk, play, love, forgive, and dream.

Slow Down

It was all the things I learned as a child: be myself, love myself, and love others. Once I started to slow down and listen to how I was feeling, it became clear I needed to take time to be outside. Spending time in nature has always been important to both Marc and I. We met because of our shared love of the outdoors.

As our lives became about long workdays we found it harder to find the time to get out in nature. We needed to find the time to breathe, to listen, and to watch the river carve the landscape. Of course, whether or not we needed to quit our jobs to do it is debatable!

Yoga Photography

Finding Home on the West Coast Trail | Yoga in True Nature

The Other Half | Yoga in True Nature Project

Living Well | Pancho Gomez

It’s Not About Stretching, It’s About Savasana | Chelsea Herman

Down to Earth Yoga | Eoin Finn

The Ecosystem that Surrounds Us | Amy Ippoliti

The Elusive Heart Center | Kristen Bini McQuaide

The Right Time for Yoga | Karen Oberg

Chaotic Mindful Sanctuary | Dr Kendall Hassemer

Yoga in Nature Photography Project | Yoga in True Nature Project

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