At long last! Haha! Here it is, the Yoga Dominatrix!
I have been telling my yoga teacher, that I have this visual of her walking around the class in leather gear with whip in her hand, as she is teaching the yoga class. It’s not that she is bossy (well, maybe just a little!), it’s more about me subjecting myself to this pain under her direction. Pain that actually feels really good and is the reason why I keep coming back for more. The pain that makes me feel, like maybe I may be a bit of a masochist.
Here is a little video by the amazing Amanda Lowe

And here is the finished product:

© Henrieta Haniskova Photography

I hope you love it as much as I do! Thank you Josie Houpt for being such a fantastic yoga teacher and friend and for being a sport and putting on the leather outfit!, You looked hot!!!
Chrys Muszka! Thank you so much for playing along and letting me put the dog collar on you! And holding those poses for EVER like you did, so that I could get a shot!
Thank you Terri Dacquisto for the wonderful styling job and playing along even when I come up with the craziest ideas! Thank you Mila Veronica! The hair and make-up were PERFECT!
And no small thanks to Kula studio, for letting us use the fantastic space for this!

It’s all out of my hands! Done! Well, almost done! I’m going to see the show being installed tomorrow! Yey! That was a lot of work and a lot of very kind people helping me through it all! This is an image that will not be a part of the show, there are others just as great if not better! I love it still and wish I could see it printed large, like the rest. And maybe I will eventually!

It’s been a fun ride, a roller-coaster. I have been up and down southern Ontario, Newcastle, Burlington, Nottawa, Collingwood, Fort Erie, Durham. And I would have gone further if I had more money and if some of my other favorite ETA’s weren’t so busy traveling and performing to celebrate Elvis’ birthday in the month of January!

It’s been a long trip from stumbling into Collingwood on the very same weekend the Elvis Festival was happening and feeling like I was asleep and dreaming everyone in the streets is Elvis! To calling the festival organizers the following year to beg for the opportunity to set up a studio at the festival and photograph these fascinating men. And now, invading their homes to make them dress up for me as Elvis and maybe even do a little dance!

The costume identifies and Elvis Tribute Artist or an Impersonator very quickly, that is true. But what is hidden beneath the persona and why is a lot more exciting and interesting to me. And that is exactly why I have gone the distance and what my show is all about. I have learned a very interesting thing, that no matter which angle I approach this from, all people want to see is Elvis. But I have arrived at a place, where Elvis is just a fractions of the interest to me and it’s become the people that go through all kinds of effort to keep the King alive, that matter to me so much more. And it is them, not Elvis I want to talk about.

We have all been influenced by Elvis in one way or another. And perhaps we don’t even realize how much he changed the world. As an artist it is my job to look at the world with the eyes of a child, like I have never seen it before. I walked into this without any judgments, not knowing what to expect. My grandmother or my mother never listened to Elvis, neither of them owned a record player. My aunts and uncles did eventually, but their record collections never included foreign performers and most definitely not ones that were the symbols of “rotten capitalism” in the eyes of the leading communist party in the socialist system I was growing up in.

I had not seen a movie with Elvis until about 2 years ago. I had some understanding of his iconic status, but the deep rooted sentimental attachment to Elvis and what he meant to the generations that adored him during the start and the peak of his carrier was something I couldn’t possibly have a grasp on. I could not help but feel like an alien visiting another planet when I walked the streets of Collingwood with all 200 Elvii in jumpsuits prancing around and gyrating their hips.

The dedication of the tribute artists and their fans was incredibly intriguing to me and my profession allows for certain liberties to be taken and given. I wanted to understand, to relate, to make sense of the behavior I liked but did not grasp.

Do I have those answers now? I don’t know, but I know I am a whole lot closer to them now, then I ever was! And maybe you’ll be inspired to look at the men that put on jumpsuits in different way after seeing my work as well! See you at the Contact gallery!

I have a black cat and I should have called her Selina. If she were a person, she would be the Catwoman. She challenges me and I love how unpredictable she is. Playful like a kitten and agile beyond belief, she gets herself into trouble, but always manages to get out without a scratch. She leads a double life, the sweet loving cat at home, she stalks the streets at nights and shows up with a mouse as her trophy every now and again.
I hear DC Comics have been around for 75 years now and Catwoman was there from nearly the beginning! Impressive, right? It seems nobody can quite decide where she came from, where she’s going or what to think of her! She is the ultimate Feline Femme Fatale. Just like my kitty cat!
Indulge me, please! Halloween is almost here! The best holiday of the year! I have never quite had the guts to put on a Catwoman suit for this special occasion, but I know a beautiful girl, who does and makes the suit look incredible too! Meghan Campbell aka Irena Dubrovna
But there is more to this story than a pretty girl in a catsuit. I was inspired to photograph this idea after seeing a picture of Meghan in the suit at the Comicon and after watching the Dark Knight. Which in my humble opinion is the best Batman movie to date. Dark and gritty made for adults that respect the child inside themselves. I loved the story and I loved the look of it.

I wanted a challenge for myself and I spent a lot of time working in a studio where controlling lighting is effortless and everything there is made to make a photographer’s life easy. Location is less predictable and you need to go with the flow and utilize everything available to you to make things happen and look the way you want them. I gave myself a homework, use what’s there! But finding a suitable location was the key. As the days get shorter, the nights get longer, darkness takes over. But I still need some light to play with and this was ideal!

This entire story is shot with a Canon 5D Mark II camera with no other than the available lighting. The challenge here was not to light the environment for my shot, but to compose the image with the existing lighting in mind and make it work. It’s amazing to see what happens when you turn your work flow upside down.

I love the fact, that my cat has a part of her life I will never be a part of. The mystery is so appealing. I feel the same about going to a location to shoot. The unpredictability of many aspects of unknown spaces is what inspires creativity. I did see the building in advance and I saw the advantages the location had, I spent some time visualizing ideas for individual shots in my mind. But it was not until I started looking through the viewfinder, that problems that would need solving manifested themselves. I feel it’s this challenge that sparks my interest and makes me creative. I shot this story to keep myself from becoming lazy and comfortable. Freezing outside at night solving problems seems to be my kind of fun!

See the full story on my homepage!