Before & After: Portraits from a Meditation Retreat

Photographer Peter Seidler completed a series of portaits taken before and after meditation practitioners participated in a month long meditation retreat. He wrote about his process and shares several of the images on the Shambhala Times website.

While Seidler didn’t offer specifics as to what he believed his subjects experienced throughout their retreat, he lists the various aspirations people often have for their meditation practice.

“For one person it might be to manage stress, cultivate focus or sleep better. For someone else it might be to be of greater benefit to other people. For another the aspiration might be spiritual fulfillment… Clearly, people come to meditation for many different reasons.”

Feel the benefits of meditation retreat for yourself! The Shambhala Center of New York is happy to once again offer one of our of most popular and anticipated programs — The 7-Day Urban Meditation Retreat. Led by Acharya Dan Hessey, this retreat is open to all levels of practitioners, anyone may attend the whole week or join the retreat for single days. Click here for more info.

 

From the Artist:

“This series of photos, titled “Before and After,” comes from a larger project called “Contemplatives,” a visual exploration of the physiological qualities of meditation practice. I set up the “Before and After” project to explore the observable effects on practitioners after long periods of intense meditation practice. The question is: what are the observable changes after a period of intense practice?

Each participant in the project was asked to simply sit for a portrait on first day of a dathun, a month-long meditation retreat. I photographed them against a consistent background. Prior to the photograph, I asked each person to consider what they were looking for in the practice period ahead. This was on day number one. Then, at the end of the program, after approximately thirty days of retreat, I asked each participant in the project to sit in front of the same background and asked each to consider what the experience of mediation retreat had been for them. The result is the series of photos. It’s clear from results that the person in every one of the portraits has undergone an important transformative experience. I leave it to the viewer to draw their own conclusion…”

-Peter Seidler

 

Feel the benefits of meditation retreat for yourself! The Shambhala Center of New York is happy to once again offer one of our of most popular and anticipated programs — The 7-Day Urban Meditation Retreat (or Weekthün). Led by Acharya Dan Hessey, this retreat is open to all levels of practitioners, anyone may attend the whole week or join the retreat for single days. Click here for more info.