4th Annual Eustis Sunlove Festival

Last Sunday we swung by Eustis to attend the Sunlove Festival which celebrates wholistic health, healing, art and music…and belly dancers!

We arrived just as the children’s dance troupe Yoga Motion was taking a bow.

Next up was Amy Anthony and students from her Belly Dance and Yoga studio AUM.

Being in Ferran Park in full sunlight, there were a lot of challenges with this shoot but, there was a lot working for me too. Typical for Florida, the sun beat down white-hot.  This day was a little different in that there was lots of wind and clouds in the sky adding to the drama of this passionate dance form. I had a lot of challenges with busy backgrounds and people who detracted from the main subjects.

Still, since it was a smaller festival, we concentrated a lot on this performance and captured some of my favorite shots that I have taken.

Another of my favorites from this series was actually going to be a throwaway. This dancer looks great and is striking a nice pose. I like tight cropping but the cropping on this photograph, cutting off her feet and her hands, is a poorly composed photograph. I liked it because of the powerful pose and I was sitting cross-legged in the front row and looking up at her.

I played with the photograph, cropping it severely and turning it to black and white film with an orange filter. Now it looks reminiscent of a fashion photograph to me. I’m happy with the results though I wish that one palm frond was not right next to her face.

Jennifer attended a Yoga Class held by yoga instructor John Colvin.

John said he had a stroke at age 55 that left him paralyzed on his left side. His doctors told him “get used to it, this is how it’s going to be.”

He was on a ton of different medications. Then John began taking Yoga classes and began regaining his mobility. He also stopped taking his medications. He would go to the doctor for checkups and the doctor would say, “Stay on this medicine. It’s working!” and would write him another prescription that John did not get filled. John indicated he had a pile of prescriptions one inch thick that remain unfilled.

Today he has about 99% mobility in his body.

John states, “If you can breathe, you can do yoga.”

The festival was held by Lake Eustis and the scene was very laid back with people discussing everything from crystals to cardiovascular health with various vendors.

One lady was blowing bubbles that floated through the festival while others were just relaxing and hanging out enjoying the beautiful day by the lake.

For the kids, there was one of those big inflatable air castles and, really, what says wholistic health and healing more than an inflatable air castle? It was a huge hit.

Shortly after the Belly Dance Troupe left the stage, the oldies band The Lost Cats came on and began to play.  They did great covers of a lot of classics.  The belly dancers were milling about off to the side when the lead singer finally said, “I see you over there bouncing and clanging those bells. I know you wanna dance. Get on out on that floor!”

A couple of them did and the bassist lept off the stage and played while dancing with them on the dance floor.

Next year, if you are interested in wholistic health and spirituality or, if you just want a nice day in the park with food and great music, and hopefully Belly Dancing, The Eustis SunLove Festival is highly recommended.