About Derek

The Photographer

Derek at Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary

I am a photographer and media-savvy artist who lives in New York City. I have a BFA in Fine Art Photography from Rochester Institute of Technology. I specialize in people, animals and events. My portfolio is diverse but some recurring subjects are:

The Yogi

Pashupa doing yoga on the Mississippi River

Pashupa doing Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana on the Mississippi River

I am a 300 hour certified Jivamukti Yoga teacher. I am also the Web Editor for the soon-to-be-launched new Jivamukti Yoga website!

In this world I am known as Pashupa, which means protector of the animals in Sanskrit. Jivamukti Yoga was co-founded by Sharon Gannon and David Life, and is one of the nine recognized styles of hatha yoga. Jivamukti Yoga is a physical, ethical, and spiritual practice, combining a vigorous hatha yoga, vinyasa-based physical style with adherence to five central tenets:

BHAKTI – Cultivation of devotion and humility
DHYANA – Meditation, connecting to inner stillness
AHIMSA – Causing the least harm possible to all other beings
NADA YOGA – Deep listening, chanting, elevated music
SHASTRA – Scripture, exploration of the traditional texts of yoga

You can find out more at my yoga website PashupaYoga.com

The Vegan Activist

polaroid grid of Derek Goodwin by Star Drooker

I went vegan on New Year’s Day 1996 with my then-partner and now best friend Megan Shackelford and have never looked back since. By 1998 I was enmeshed in the Rochester vegan community and was serving on the board of directors of the Rochester Area Vegetarian Society (RAVS).Moving to Northampton, Massachusetts in 1999 I began to put my talents as a photographer and web designer to work for the movement. I created the web site Veganica.com which launched in 2000 as an online community for vegan artists and musicians (now out-dated and on the back-burner). In 2001 I began photographing events and animals for Farm Sanctuary and also became the photography advisor for VegNews magazine. My photographs of sanctuary farm animals have since been published in dozens of magazines, newspapers and books all over the world. Many of the them will be featured in the new book Ninety-Five: Meeting America’s Farmed Animals in Stories and Photographs by No Voice Unheard press.

In 2005 a community radio station called ValleyFree Radio launched in Northampton and I decided a show about veganism would be just the thing. In October of 2005 Vegan Radio made its debut and featured me and my co-hosts Megan Shackelford and Scott Lahteine. Together we covered news stories and events, interviewed vegans and animal rights activists, and played music by vegans. The broadcast shows were digitized and made into podcasts. Vegan Radio was one of the earliest vegan podcasts and remains one of the most popular today. In December of 2005 I received Farm Sanctuary’s Outstanding Activist Award.

2006 was the year that I got the Good Egg Award from Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary and the “Friend of Farm Animals” Award from Farm Sanctuary, honors I will cherish for the rest of my life. I also began to work part time as a vegan baker and vegan brunch chef at Cafe Evolution in Florence, MA, which I continued doing until the end of 2009.

In late August of 2006 I went to the Burning Man festival and was inspired by the amazing artworks and abundance of creativity among the participants. This event grows in size and scope every year and is shaping culture and art all around the world. I realized the potential that bringing a vegan message to the event could have and in an epiphany came up with the concept of a veggie-powered school bus that would be a vehicle for doing education and outreach about veganism – the Vegan Bus.

In April of 2007 a group of vegan friends and I began fund raising and by August had purchased a full sized school bus and converted it to run on waste vegetable oil (WVO). We took the bus on its maiden voyage of 6000 miles (round trip) from Massachusetts to Nevada to attend the 2007 Burning Man Festival, where we joined with an organization called Vegcamp that did outreach and education at the event.

I moved to New Orleans in January of 2010 and wrote a column as the New Orleans Vegan Examiner . I also created the website for the NOLA Veggie Fest, and will be a speaker at the event in May of 2012.

In March of 2012 I was hired by Jivamukti Yoga to be the Web Editor of their new web site (to be released later this year), and moved to NYC in April. Jivamukti Yoga promotes the practice of non-violence towards all beings (Ahimsa) as one of the most important aspects of a spiritual path. I will be ensuring that this is represented on the new web site in a way that will be effective in changing people’s hearts around the world.

I was mentioned in the VegNews magazine March/April 2012 “The Vegan Man Issue” as one of the “vegan men we love.” Thanks for that! I do my best…