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Photography
Canyon Gorge
Canyon Gorge is a rutted, one-lane road that winds down a hillside to the bank of Cheat Lake. It’s short, but it feels like West Virginia. Just to the left, overlooking the water, you’ll find the beautiful home of Joelle Cameron.
On Saturdays and Sundays, Joelle teaches stand up paddleboard (SUP) yoga out on the water. The positions and movements are largely the same, but as the name implies, they are performed on a 10’ floating platform.
She started practicing three years ago here in Morgantown at Suncrest Yoga. Eventually, she took an instructor class, and everything took shape from there.
On this particular morning, Joelle has two students, Kaitlynn and Jamie. Kaitlynn drove all the way from Pittsburgh.
“It wasn’t too bad, only an hour. This is way prettier than Pittsburgh,” she laughs.
Everyone seems to agree that the surroundings are a big part of what makes the class experience so unique. “It’s so peaceful on a Sunday to come out here and be on the water,” Jamie tells me.
Joelle agrees wholeheartedly. “We’ve got the best spot on the lake. We go right over to Quarry Run and there’s a waterfall in there. It’s nice and quiet. You don’t have to paddle too far to get there. It’s just beautiful.”
Joelle shows Jamie and Kaitlynn how to size their paddles
What sets SUP yoga apart, aside from the scenery, is the fact that the support itself moves beneath you. The idea can be intimidating for people new to the practice, but Joelle says the board serves as a feedback mechanism for learning how to get better at yoga.
“On a stable platform like the floor, you could be uneven the whole class and not know it. But on a paddleboard, it’s going to tell you. Your weight will shift one way or the other.”
As the body counters and balances those shifts in weight, it uses fine muscle control that is rarely employed anywhere else. Which means that it’s a great way to strengthen untapped muscle groups.
“I’ve heard people say that they use muscles that they’ve never used before, and they’re either semi-sore or very sore after class,” Joelle says. “I think it’s a whole body workout.”
After some basic instruction, the girls paddle a short distance across the lake. They anchor in a shaded cove and begin the class. The small waterfall Joelle mentioned emanates a gentle white noise, occasionally cut by the sound of a boat in the distance.
Before the day is over both students will have tumbled into the water once. Each time they laugh it off and continue.
It would be disingenuous to say that paddleboard yoga looks easy. But perhaps there’s something to be said for a particular discipline when failure means swimming in the lake on a summer morning. Some of us were going to do that anyway.
This is Valerie. She's a West Virginia veteran, model, and genuinely good person. It's nice to hang out with someone who can talk about guns, video games and fantasy worlds with equal enthusiasm. After a longer-than-expected hike out along Cheat Lake in Morgantown, we shot four looks in the same area.
Gun lovers: Don't forget to check out the AR build at the end. And Valerie wants to make sure people know that the mag is not resting on the ground in that prone shot. :)
During this first shoot, a butterfly approached Valerie and began to flit around her, hovering just in front of her face. After a few moments, it landed on her nose. She giggled like a kid (without realizing it I think), then laid back on the rock with her new friend. The butterfly stayed right there on her nose for more than 5 minutes. It was pretty magical.
This month I had the opportunity to travel across the western portion of Virginia to document farms working with Sustainable Chesapeake, including one of VA's only hemp farms. Here are a few shots from those quick visits.
While on a recent trip through the state on assignment, I pulled over to take these photos of the rolling hills of central West Virginia. Beautiful.
Today we had a podcast interview with a public defender in Charleston named George Castelle. He was responsible for writing a draft for the state Supreme Court appeal of the man convicted of murdering the girls.