November 2013 – Simon Hendy Photography

Alton Towers

27/11/201325/07/2020 By shendyNo Comments

I spent the weekend at Alton Towers - the theme park is closed for their winter maintenance, but we were at the Splash Landings Hotel which has an indoor water park attached. "We" were British Naturism, running their 7th Alton Towers weekend (Friday evening through to Sunday lunchtime), although it's the first one I've been to. It was pretty much sold out, with approaching 400 naturists staying. Strangely, Alton Towers don't allow their name to be used in advertising the event, and it can only be marketed to BN members - so they're happy to take our money (what's known as the buff pound) but not to be publicly associated with naturists. Would their regular clientele be completely freaked out? The waterpark was great fun, with a couple of good water slides - one of them was long, fast and dark. A real blast! As well as various activities (yoga, tai-chi, paper plane making, a portrait photography workshop (not by me) and evening musical...

National Memorial Arboretum

27/11/201308/04/2015 By shendyNo Comments

Some photos from a trip to the National Memorial Arboretum, near Lichfield - the national services memorial. An interesting place, with several moving memorials. Worth a visit. By the way, do please tell me if you think I'm overdoing the black and white. For some reason the photos from the new camera just seem to work really well - crisp and sharp and well suited to contrasty b&w....

Toyah

02/11/201308/04/2015 By shendyNo Comments

I went to see Toyah in concert the other day, playing at The Fleece in Bristol. "Anthem" was the second album I ever bought, back in 1981, but I've never see her play live before. I was in two minds about whether to go but a couple of colleagues saw her last year and said she was really good - and they were right, it was an excellent show. I took a some photos, just with the compact camera, some of which came out pretty well. I reckon I could have taken some pretty good shots with the SLR but venues don't like you using them. I also took some of one of the support acts (Alexa de Strange) as their guitarist was throwing some rock and roll shapes in front of me. ...