Yoga Photography – Sydney Yoga Dance Teacher helping people heal from the inside-out

Meet Sydney Yoga Dance Teacher Panagiota (Penny) Cook who we have just produced a series of photographic images for her Bodytone Yoga website. Penny is the epitome of calm, caring, spirited, energetic and completely grounded.
Penny’s goal and photography brief was to convey a beautiful feeling rather than have people just focus on her body. She explained that if a posture encourages a heart opening, she wanted to convey that openness, warmth, joy and freedom or a feeling of strength, balance, focus and peace. Penny is extremely humble and emphasised “I’m not perfect with my yoga postures – this is a life journey – but I do everything with love, playfulness and creativity – combining my knowledge of yoga so far, as well as intuition. I help people heal and feel good from the inside-out and this is the message I want to capture.”

What Penny loves about her profession and what keeps her motivated:
“I love that my yoga path and therapy work involves every fibre of my being. I don’t need to separate body, mind and spirit with what I do. I can bring love, joy, creativity, understanding, care and my full presence into every single day. This is a lifelong calling and it keeps me motivated to know that I will always be a student of yoga and life. I am so blessed to work with such wonderful people! I love the role I play in people’s journeys. It’s very special being someone’s yoga therapist. I honour the trust I receive and delight in the transformations I witness with them. I really enjoy the variety and all the amazing people and groups I practice with – one to one, corporate groups, athletes, actors, dancers, school children, mums to be and mums with bubs…you name it. I also love the freedom in being able to cross over my artistic/performing arts side with Yogadance – an art-form I have been developing for the past seven years. I work with a small group of talented yogi-dancers as a vehicle for creative expression and inquiry into what it means to “be”. We have lots of fun!
Penny’s yoga teacher background:
“I have been a yoga teacher since 2005 and one of my favourite things is sharing my love for yoga, people and life every single day. Initially trained in Hatha and Ashtanga Vinyasa yoga lineages, I have since been deepening my knowledge and experience in centering practices for feeling at home in your body, grounded and focused, core support for rehabilitation, optimum body alignment principles for therapy and body-mind efficiency, freedom of movement for a sense of ease in your daily life, strength and flexibility training for fitness and dance, as well as more specialised practices like prenatal and postnatal yoga, kids yoga, relaxation and meditation studies. The learning never stops!
I am also just about to graduate as a Yoga Therapist after a powerful year of training. So basically I love to know about you and how yoga can be personalised for You. My passion is ‘how we help you feel healthy, balanced and happy’. I have a great respect for the yoga tradition and all my teachers but I also like to be very honest about how I incorporate yoga into my daily life, so that it feels natural for me. I enjoy connecting to my body-mind-spirit in my individual way and inspiring others to do the same.”
The experience of being photographed:
“It felt Beautiful! Tania, you are such a joy to be around and I felt like I could simply shine without feeling nervous or self-conscious. I love that you are so thorough and patient and that we took our time to make sure we had plenty of photos to choose from. I’m looking forward to doing more work together in the future.”
Yoga photography conveying character:
“I love the images! They captured the sweet, joyous, down to earth feeling that characterises my nature and how I work with people. I think this will attract the right match of people for me. I’m looking forward to updating my website and having these professional images for all my marketing collateral. I believe they will help me present really well into the world as a Yoga teacher, therapist, creative, and nice human being. Thank you so much!”
What’s on the horizon for Penny:
“I am so excited about my upcoming trip to New York! I am treating myself to a month of dance training at one of my favourite dance schools, Broadway Dance Center. I have always wanted to immerse myself deeper into the creative arts and the yoga has helped me connect more and more with this, safely and happily. I also plan to enjoy Broadway shows and live jazz, take voice and singing lessons and just have fun! I do these things to nourish my spirit and top up my enthusiasm for life so I always have plenty to give to myself and others too.”
For enquiries about Yoga Photography with Tania Niwa please drop us a line here