Looking for Humans: Diversity in Yoga and Diversity in Our Photos Of Yoga Practitioners

Looking for Humans: Diversity in Yoga and Diversity in Our Photos Of Yoga Practitioners Nina Zolotow by Nina

Sonam Palbar, Age 50

Dianne Scott, Age 64

The original purpose of our original photo “contest” (see Photo Contest! and Photo Contest: Open to All People Over 50!) was to raise the visibility of older people doing yoga (and generally doing something other than restorative or chair yoga, which is typically the only way they’re portrayed). I wanted to show that yoga isn’t just for the young, and that many older people are very physical capable. But in the back of my mind, I always intended to increase the visibility of all types of older people, as there seems to be some diversity problems in the yoga community here in the west. As I said, when I posted about our latest photo “contest”:

“Diversity is encouraged so you can have any body type, be any race or color, have physical disabilities (wheelchairs, canes, prostheses, etc. are all welcome), and live anywhere in the world.”

But the truth is that almost all the photos I have received are of white women. Only a very small percentage of the photos I receive are men, people of color, or people with visible disabilities (don’t think I got any of those!). During a given week, I try to balance out the photos I share, so I’m kind of hoarding the ones of men and people of color to spread them out. I’d really like to change that! I’ve reached out to a couple of people who commonly take photos of people who are typically underrepresented, and I’m hoping they’ll allow me to share their photos, too. But today I’m also asking for your help with this problem.

If you’re from a typically underrepresented group, please send some me some quality photos! If you don’t have any yet of yourself, ask someone to take some (see Time for a New Photo Contest! for guidelines). Or, if you’re not from an underrepresented group but you know yoga practitioners who are, maybe you could take some photos of those friends or students and send them along. Or, if you know a photographer who might want to me to share their photos—with credits, of course—maybe you can put me in touch with them.

Another thing: Recently I read something interesting about how in the fashion world middle-aged women are the most invisible. The token “older” woman in the group of very young women is always in her seventies or eighties and “whippet thin with long gray hair.” I had to laugh at that—so true. So that made me think that maybe women in their forties are getting over looked as being both too old and too young, so I decided (hey, it’s my party) to change my mind about the age range and lower the age to 40. Oh, what the heck, maybe I’ll just do away with the age range entirely. From now on, all humans are welcome.

Hit me up! (First read the instructions at Time for a New Photo Contest!, though, because I can’t use certain kinds of photographs.)

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