Freestyle Academy proudly presents

Rammurti Reed: A Senior Profile Portrait by Chanti Holroyd (2015)

This is Rammurti Reed. He is a Senior Minister known as a ''Light-Bearer'' at Ananda’s Self-Realization Church in Palo Alto and a resident of the Ananda Palo Alto Community. He spent about two years in India learning the art of meditation with his wife. He also taught English at a school on an island in Japan. Here he also lived through a devastating natural disaster: a typhoon that wiped out his home and school buildings in 1976. This event eventually lead him and his wife to Ananda, a world-wide chain of spiritual communities and churches based on the teachings of Paramahansa Yogananda and brought to the West by Swami Kriyananda.

I strived to communicate Rammurti’s wisdom and infectious kindness through this portrait. To create such photo, I had my subject get comfortable on a bench with a bright, warm background that I thought matched his personality. Then I took photos of him while casually talking to him in order to get the most candid shots possible. I used low ISO because it was a very bright day and I made sure to place him on the rule of thirds.
Visitors 1131