Legendary photographer Michael Childers has assembled an exhibition of more than 30 nude yoga photographs—images that inspire awe.
The Naked Yoga exhibition will be at the Stephen Richard Baumbach Gallery in Palm Springs from Friday, Oct. 23, through Sunday, Oct. 25. The funds from sales of prints will go toward advanced yoga teacher-training scholarships, according to Stephanie Hartshorn Eley, of PACT Yoga.
Childers, a longtime Coachella Valley resident who was born in North Carolina, has photographed people for more than 200 magazine covers, including GQ, New York, Esquire, Los Angeles, Elle, Life and both English and Italian Vogue. He has created more than 100 film posters for major motion picture studios and has worked as a photographer on many films, including Grease, Marathon Man, The Year of Living Dangerously, Coal Miner’s Daughter, Pennies From Heaven, Hammett and Endless Love. While Childers is best known for his celebrity photos, yoga also caught Childers’ eye.
“I’ve seen several yoga photos on how they can contort their bodies into stances and poses that nobody else has ever seen—and this is what Michael did. It all worked,” said Baumbach, a photographer and fine art printer who owns the gallery hosting the show. “These photos are beyond Michael’s celebrity ones. It shows a side of Michael we’ve never seen before, a different facet of him. His prime emphasis has always been on people—celebrities like Ringo Starr—but this shows he’s got chops. (He’s) a good, solid photographer, and that’s what we want to show.”
To make sure the poses were correct, Childers used dancers and yoga practitioners, as well as a yoga teacher-choreographer. These models can hold challenging shapes with precise alignment, making a yoga pose look powerful on camera. He then developed the photographs in a darkroom without any AI or digital enhancements, according to Baumbach.
Childers took the photos over a two-year period in his Los Angeles studio. It is sculptural photography, playing with light and human form.
“I didn’t want anything sexual. If (an image is) sexual, it’s in your mind, not in my mind. I wanted gorgeous positions and shapes, and to see how men and women’s bodies could mold in these wonderful yoga poses, and how their bodies relate to each other through yoga.” Michael Childers
“I had a French printer from Paris, who was living in L.A. for a couple of years,” Childers said. “He did all the printing on special French paper, one of a kind, that produced a soft silhouette. When I saw it, it took my breath away.”
Childers, who spent much of his life around the dance world in New York and London, said of dancers: “They have superior body awareness, extreme flexibility and expressive movement control. And you know what? As I probed into every dancer, they all did yoga.”
The nude photos are tastefully done. “I didn’t want anything sexual,” Childers said. “If (an image is) sexual, it’s in your mind, not in my mind. I wanted gorgeous positions and shapes, and to see how men and women’s bodies could mold in these wonderful yoga poses, and how their bodies relate to each other through yoga.”
Yoga can change one’s mind and readjust mindsets, Childers said.
“It counterbalances the damage we’re getting from the algorithms, Facebook and all these things that we didn’t have 15 years ago,” Childers said. “It builds up the immune system, is good for the joints, is good for anti-cancer things.”
Childers recently had hip-replacement surgery due to an accident, but he’s back to practicing yoga—chair yoga, for now—every Thursday with his teacher, Scott Cole, an international fitness expert and mobility master.
Childers said he loves newer types of yoga, like hot yoga and steam yoga.
“I couldn’t ever stop,” Childers said. “Why? I truly love it. It clears my mind from all the pain or angst or worrying—great blocs of spiritual freedom. … Yoga is an integration of love of life. It opens up the ceiling and lets the inner light in.”
Naked Yoga, an exhibition of photos by Michael Childers, will be on display with special events from 5 to 7 p.m., Friday, Oct. 23; 3 to 5 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 24; and 5 to 7 p.m., Sunday, Oct. 25, at Stephen Richard Baumbach Gallery, at 4116 Matthew Drive, in Palm Springs. Admission is free, but RSVPs are required for the Oct. 25 event. For more information, visit www.pactyoga.com.
