festival Archives • Sedona Yoga Festival

20 Minutes with SYF Photographer Ty Dobbs

Mar 11, 2024 | Sedona Yoga, Yoga Festival Experience

Ty Dobbs is a renowned yoga photographer and conscious content creator, who has been making SYF look good since 2018. His talent lies not only in his ability to curate and create art with shape and light, but also in the energy of his soul, which creates the space for his subject’s true essence to shine through. His work has taken him all over the country, and we’re grateful that he will be returning to SYF in 2024. We sat down with Ty to learn a bit more about his process and his art.

If you’re an SYF presenter and are interested in booking Ty for a private shoot during the event, please reach out to Ty directly!

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SYF: You’re a Texas native. In 2017, you made the move from Dallas to Southern California. How did this journey influence your photography?

Ty Dobbs (TD): This move was big for me. Having studied Joseph Campbell and The Hero’s Journey for years prior, I knew that I was facing my largest threshold yet. With that being said, my photography bloomed out of the experience because I propelled myself into a land of extensive opportunity. From sweeping National Park landscapes, to significant portraiture opportunities. My art grew rapidly once I landed in CA.

SYF: Growing up, you found joy in using cameras to ‘freeze time.’ What is it about photography that continues to captivate you?

TD: Photography always had that magical and fascinating aspect with it growing up. Now, I seek the use of photography (and videography) as a way to express oneself and share a message. I also still value photography as a “time travel hack.” It has the ability to take us back to a distant and forgotten memory… sometimes allowing us to feel the rush of emotions all over again, good or bad.

SYF: You say on your website that you attended “YouTube University.” How has being largely self-taught shaped your approach to photography?

TD: Ah yes, the great YTU. Being nearly 100% self taught means I do not have a conventional way of capturing the moment. It also means a lot of mistakes, but those mistakes are often beautiful in their own way. Instead of going through any formal schooling where I was instructed on the “good and bad,” I was able to determine my own style and answers to each of those labels.

SYF: You describe yourself as a world traveler and a student of life. How has traveling influenced your work, especially in your Vista Views and Memory Moments?

TD: Travel is one of the most potent doses of education I could have asked for on my journey of discovering my craft. It allows endless subjects, experiences, and stories that each leave a lasting mark.

I consider Vista Views and Memory Moments the two pillars of my photography work. Vista Views is my landscape portfolio and Memory Moments consists of my commercial and portrait work. Both are equally as important. Vista Views are quite literally the epitome of the subject matter, while Memory Moments have contributed to the relationships that have formed via traveling and living different places.

SYF: Having your work featured in art galleries, like in Big Bear, CA, must be exhilarating. How does it feel seeing your work displayed in such settings?

TD: It truly is exhilarating. It feels amazing! It has been a few years since my Big Bear gallery days and still my wife encourages me to find a new local gallery where we live now in Southern Utah. I’m sure there will be a time where I enter into the local gallery scene again. I believe pictures are meant to pull you in… and that is more challenging to accomplish in an Instagram post or digital screen.

SYF: As a yogi and a photographer, how do you feel these two paths intersect in your life and work?

TD: I was a photographer first, then I found yoga — and then I married the two into Yoga Photography with the help of some great mentors (ahem… Robert Sturman). The path of yoga allowed me to be more conscious with where I pointed my camera. Searching for the light became more than just a metaphor. As the Yogi within me grew stronger, so did my desire to capture people living their purpose. That has contributed to some pretty incredible international trips and experiences at festivals all around the globe!

SYF: Having photographed the Sedona Yoga Festival for several years, what are some of your most memorable moments or photographs from the festival?

TD: I will never forget my first SYF in 2018, and just being amazed by the intention and community. It felt like home. Now with each year that I return, I get to reconnect with new and old friends. It has become one of my absolute favorite annual pilgrimages.

SYF: In your opinion, what makes a great photograph, especially in the context of a vibrant event like SYF?

TD: In my opinion what makes a great photograph is being able to feel something when you look at it. In the sense of SYF, that could be the beautiful, warm, and welcoming landscape. Or a participant moved to tears from a transcendental meditation they just experienced. SYF provides so many beautiful moments to all who attend. That makes it so easy to capture the magic — if you are tuned into its frequency. ;)=

SYF: What advice would you give to aspiring photographers who wish to follow a path similar to yours?

TD: I would say to go for it! If picking up a camera and pointing it at ANYTHING makes time feel as though it stops… then photography is probably a path for you to consider. Don’t let experience, or equipment hold you back. Seek opportunities to work that Creativity muscle as often as possible. Live in that joy and be prepared for the miracles that will soon follow.

SYF: What future projects or dreams are you currently pursuing or hope to pursue?

TD: I am currently working to build a large online course database for practitioners of all styles. From Yoga to Acupuncture and even Detoxing, I have had the pleasure of working with over a dozen experts in their field. I have always found the quote “If I have seen further [than others], it is by standing on the shoulders of giants” by Newton both fascinating and inspiring.

We live in an age where we can learn and develop at increasingly rapid rates, and we can attempt to consume a career’s worth of knowledge in a rather short period of time. This realization left me feeling inspired to offer a platform for conscious entrepreneurs to share their skills. I call my platform Inspired Conscious Content. My current mission is to help colleagues discover new ways to put themselves out there!

SYF: Finally, is there a message or a thought you’d like to share with our readers and your future clients?

TD: To anyone reading that has NOT been to SYF so far, my first message is to tell you that you’re missing out by not going each and every year. The experience is similar to that of an intensive yoga retreat in some distant land. It will leave you feeling full and embodied! To anyone who would like to connect and hear more about photography, videography, or Inspired Conscious Content… Please reach out! I would love to chat and see if there is an opportunity to work together. See you all at SYF.

Join Ty and other luminaires at the 11th annual Sedona Yoga Festival, March 14–17. Passes available here!

Lead image, of course, by Ty Dobbs.

Desiree Rumbaugh — Moving Through the Ages with Yoga

Mar 14, 2022 | Sedona Yoga, Sedona Yoga Festival Teacher Feature, Yoga Interviews

Desiree Rumbaugh — Moving Through the Ages with Yoga

When we tend to think of yoga that’s accessible for all ages and for aging bodies, we trend toward restorative and gentle yoga, as if our aging bodies across the board lose the will for a physical challenge. It doesn’t have to be that way, according to international teacher, author, and PBS contributor Desiree Rumbaugh. “When I was younger, I’d always hear older people saying, ‘I used to do this or that,’” she says. As a very athletic and disciplined practitioner, this wasn’t how Desiree envisioned her own practice changing through the years. She figured that there had to be a way to continue to age well, without giving up the difficult physical practice.

As she herself crossed the threshold of 50 and beyond, that’s what her teaching began to showcase. “How do we keep the party going? How do we keep the fun going? How do we keep our wrists and our back and our knees and our neck able to withstand these poses without injury? So that’s what my teaching is like,” she says, “answering those questions and giving people a lot of ideas.”

Creating a Community

Desiree isn’t alone in this pursuit. She has what she calls a pit crew of physical therapists, weight trainers, and different people to advise her and keep her — and her students — safe as she explores what it means to embrace physicality for older bodies. As the Western yoga world continues to move toward accessibility, Desiree says that she inhabits an important space. “I think that’s kind of interesting to go learn from the lady who’s 63,” she says, “the lady who has been doing this for 35 years, and does everything like handstands and backbends.”

It’s not only an inspiration because of her age, but because of what that kind of flexibility — both physical and of the boundaries we consider in our own minds about the physical — represents. “It’s not because I’m lucky,” says Desiree. “I’ve had to work to change habits and figure out why these pains were there. I’ve had a lot of ups and downs just like everybody,” she says. “How have I gone into it instead of around it or avoiding it?”

This doesn’t mean just haphazardly experimenting with advanced poses. In her thirties, Desiree recalls just being able to go the park, for example, and kicking up into a handstand. This isn’t a possibility at 63, when the stakes are much higher if she falls. This “makes me more aware and conscious,” she says, “so there’s the mind aspect. I think as we age, we need to have stimulation of new thoughts and new ideas and new experiences.” That’s what Desiree’s teaching is really all about.

What Students Can Expect in Her Class

Desiree recognizes that her approach may not be for everybody — but she’s not trying to be. She wants her students to explore their own boundaries, and learn something about themselves that they may not have thought was possible. Her classes inspire students to understand that hard work and dedication results in progress; that you have the power to change your body and your mindset for the better. She also wants to “stress the fun of playing in a yoga class with your friends, even though it can be solitary practice. That’s a big one for me,” she says, “the joy of connecting with others in a playful way where we encourage each other and the support of the community.”

That’s what being at SYF is all about for Desiree — that connection of being with others of likemind, “supported by the breathing and the chanting and the working together mindfully in the present moment.” It’s why we’re so excited to be back together after two years apart, and why we hope you’ll join us in June.

Tickets are on sale now! Come experience the transformation of SYF with us. We can’t wait to see you soon.

Why SYF Is Different This Year — And Why You Can’t Miss June’s Event

Feb 15, 2022 | Programming Spotlights, SYF2022

Why SYF Is Different This Year — And Why You Can’t Miss June’s Event

The world isn’t the same as it was the last time we were able to come together in mindful community, and the programming team at SYF, led by Director Reggie Hubbard, is determined for this year’s conference experience to mirror that. “We’re ??seeking to diversify programming not just in terms of the presenter,” says Reggie, “but also in creating opportunities for cross pollination and formalizing that. Rather than simply giving presenters and practitioners an opportunity to come together and be consumers of a product, be co-creators as we emerge from whatever we’ve been through to wherever we’re going.”

This looks and feels different than your typical yoga festival with all familiar faces in the lineup. The theme for SYF 2022 is Give It Up For Grace, and Reggie says that weaving in the idea of grace is integral to what he’s aiming to create. That looks like “giving space to collaborate and connect,” he says. “It looks like giving space to get your CEUs, of course, but also giving you the space to lay outside in the sun, to dance.” This, he says, more embodies the totality of the practice of yoga. It’s not just about running from one class to the next and checking off boxes of experience. It’s about creating a feeling of expansiveness, a space for healing.

How 2022 Will Be Different — And Different From Other Yoga Festivals

One way that this is built into the SYF experience this year is in the place itself. Because the event is being held entirely outdoors in the majesty of Posse Grounds Park, there will be more time between class sessions to relax and integrate. With 360 red rock vistas and the openness of blue skies overhead, the container itself is a player in the experience of SYF this year. “Holding space in wide open space — in these times that have been so congested and constricted — there’s an opportunity for spaciousness; an opportunity to acknowledge the grief we’ve been through,” says Reggie. “This is the space for people to come together in a way that serves our collective regeneration.”

Another way that this healing will be made possible is by the diversity of the presenters — in all senses of the word. Not only is SYF working to prioritize underrepresented voices in the yoga event space, “part of it is bringing people who have never been to Sedona to Sedona and having that mash up with the locals,” says Reggie. “I’m imagining what a meditator from Brooklyn who works in prisons can share and create with a person from Utah who does mindful yoga in prisons,” he says.

One of SYF’s signature offerings is the Yoga for PTSD Training. While the festival will continue this unique signature offering, it will be slightly different this year — a trauma-informed training led by people of color. “Viewing trauma from a more holistic sense, as it pertains to all of us and rendered by people coming through the lens of compassion and service is super powerful,” says Reggie. It’s another way that grace is taking center stage at SYF, as well as the recognition of shifts that have occurred in the wake of 2020. Details are still being finalized, so stay tuned for more information coming soon!

Why This is Important Now

The time to embrace the changes that we’ve collectively experienced is now. “If we haven’t noticed,” says Reggie, “the ways in which we’ve done things in the past are no longer working. The only reason we think they work is because we’re addicted to them. As systems fade away, it’s incumbent upon people to create new norms.”

As leaders in the mindfulness community, SYF is stepping up to do just that. It’s not just about holding space — but about fostering creativity. In the creative flow, we learn not only other ways of doing, but of being. “The playbook is finding community, finding our latent connectivity — and then using community and connectivity to foster creativity.”

Come co-create with us this June, and be a part of the paradigm shift. Tickets on sale now!

Making Plans as a Practice of Presence

Dec 3, 2021 | Sedona Yoga

Why Making Plans is a Practice of Presence — and Can Bring Meaning to the Now

If you’ve exprienced or survived trauma or loss, you may be familiar with the feeling that the future feels daunting. The lessons of our yoga practice teach us that cultivating a sense of presence and appreciation for the here and now can help us to feel grounded and content, and may even help to combat symptoms of depression. And yet when we cannot think about the future, we often experience an acute sense of longing, an inability to find that feleing of grounding or content. In his 2018 groundbreaking book, Lost Connections—Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression—and the Unexpected Solutions, researcher and writer Johann Hari posits that a lost connection to the future may be one major reason we experience depression or anxiety; when our connection to the idea of the future has been severed, we struggle to find meaning in the present.

The Greater Good Science Center in Berkley, CA, backs up this idea that planning for the future can have a similar effect to our psychological wellbeing as does mindfulness practices. “Prospecting,” as sociologists call it, is different from anxiously anticipating the future—it’s a way of dreaming up possibilities. “Besides helping us make decisions and reach our goals,” writes Summer Allen in a 2019 article for Greater Good Magazine, “there is evidence that prospection may improve psychological health more generally.”

Dreaming up possibilities in turn fosters a sense of optimism. When we view the future as bleak, without anything to look forward to, it’s much more difficult to relish the present moment. My parents used to have a saying in their marriage: Always “wreak H.A.V.O.C.” — “Have A Vacation On Calendar.” It was meaningful for them to always have something to look forward to, particularly when things got difficult. Rather than an obsolete goal or desire, making plans for their immediate future allowed them to get through challenges, motivated by a tangible reward.

One of the most difficult things about the Covid-19 pandemic has been not only the canceled vacations and plans, but the feeling that future plans themselves are obsolete. Luckily for all of us, vaccines, antibodies, and the hard-won knowledge of the pandemic has allowed for us to again look toward the future with optimism. As such, one of the best things you can do to celebrate is to get that vacation on the calendar.

What better way to do so than to return to mindful community presence at Sedona Yoga Festival? While May may feel like a long way off, creating the space to imagine the possibilities—and carving out the time for something meaningful to your future self—could be just the thing to help you navigate those winter blues.

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Sedona Yoga Festival Always Will Be My Home – Testimonial by Alan Alcid

Apr 13, 2017 | Sedona Yoga

Hello, Bright Lights! As a Yoga Instructor and a Photographer of Sedona Yoga Festival, I feel so blessed and honored with this Aumazing experience. As a Yoga Instructor, giving, receiving and sharing the knowledge of YOGA is just the highlight of my trip. I thank you Sedona Yoga Festival specially to all the staff and of course Heather and Marc for this opportunity. It has been nothing short of illuminating! Everyone has given me so much to think about and after this that weekend consider you all my “teachers” and “students” for yoga and mentor in life.

Sedona Yoga Festival is always will be my home. This is truly the first yoga festival that I attended and just fell in love with everything. It gives the sense of blissfullness and feeling the vortex inside me which is a funnel shape created by a whirling fluidlike a vortex of spiritual energy which resonates within and strengthens the inner being of each and every person at the festival. To be inspired! learning new perspectives from a variety of geographically diverse teachers boosts our collective energies. You can’t help but feel the life-enhancing power of being a part of the creative process. It was truly MAGICAL!

As a Photographer, going back again and wearing a different hat is an honor! Photography is my love as to teaching yoga and I just love “Capturing the Moments”. Working and be part of the Sedona Yoga Festival is not only partly a retreat but also a kind of yoga vacation. Just the location alone is just is amazing. What better way to spend your time away from work than doing something you love and investing in your own personal growth.

There is this grace and divine to all – thank you Sedona Yoga Festival for teaching us more heaven and less earth. Thank you Heather, Marc and all the staff for the commitment to this magical art and the effect it's having around the world…for how it has affected me. This is a once in a lifetime experience of sharing the love of YOGA.

Thank you to all for your love, hugs and support. I look forward to being of service to each one of you in the future – SEDONA YOGA FESTIVAL 2018!

Peace and Love, Alan