Art Nudes (NSFW)

A couple of weekends ago I ventured up to London (a rare event) to take part in an art nude studio photography day. This was organised by a naturist friend and was a clothes optional event, which made for a really good environment with the models, and was probably a bit unusual for them - I think they're used to being the only naked ones. What was very noticeable was that the day wasn't just men photographing women - we had almost as many male models as female, as well as women taking photos. Several people did stints on both sides of the camera. If you've seen any of my work you'll know that I don't photograph people very much, and certainly not in a studio, so this was quite a new experience. My main learning point is to come up with more ideas of my own, rather than relying on the models (who were excellent). On the whole though, I...
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Alton Towers

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...
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Au naturel

Back in July I went on my first naturist holiday - a week's camping down in Cornwall. Each year British Naturism organise "Nudefest", taking over a decent sized campsite (Newperran, near Perranporth) and making it naturist for the week. I've only ever camped for a night or two so was a little apprehensive about it - until it transpired that it would be in the middle of a heatwave. Over the course of the week, we had complete wall-to-wall sunshine from dawn to dusk, every day - just a bit of fog on the last morning. Of course, that meant it was damn hot - so hot that a bottle of wine I had in the tent spontaneously popped it's cork after a couple of days. Fortunately it was stood upright so there wasn't any spillage. It was a write-off though. And yes, that much sun did mean a serious risk of sunburn - you needed protection from about 7:30 in the...
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