Rice and Rock Concerts

Link to Gallery 2005 Nude Olympics – Images by Jamie McDonald

I’m not sure how to greet my google analytics and photoshelter statistics every week when it is revealed my most popular photos are of the 2005 Nude Olympics. I’ve checked the incoming keywords, and there are literally thousands of you out there week in-week out searching for images of the ‘nude olympics.’ My gallery of the 2005 Nude Olympics is almost twice as popular as my second most popular, which is of Tiger Leaping Gorge in China.

So, some information about the Nude Olympics seems in order. It is typically held annually at Maslin Beach, about a 30 minute drive south of Adelaide. In 1975 Maslins was declared Australia’s first ‘clothing-optional’ beach, and the good residents of South Australia chose a stunning spot for it with cliffs providing a stunning backdrop to the golden sand and crystal clear water.

As a definite non-nudist it certainly takes some adjusting to heading to the beach to shoot images for an agency of naked people – everywhere! As an Aussie I have spent a good deal of most summers at the beach with a pair of boardies on, but both times I’ve gone south to Maslin Beach I’ve always maintained a strict level of jeans and sleeves (just trying to not fit in I guess!)

It is a pretty amusing few hours of naked marathon (a run up the beach a few hundred metres), tug of war, best bum, etc. I read in the news in Australia that the Olympics had been cancelled again this month for the third year in a row. Typically held late January on a Sunday it is claimed that the organisers can no longer get enough volunteers to stage the event, so perhaps if you’re in Adelaide January 2011 you can let the organisers know you’ll help!?

There is a link to the facebook group here: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=98194732424 and the Southern Naturists site is here http://www.southernunitednaturists.org.au/

Now I’ve carefully phrased the above subject as I don’t want to pretend that I’m a) not a tourist, and b) not annoying. I am keen though to know what really gets your blood boiling when you’re on the road travelling.

For me the concept of getting your blood pressure rising when you’re on holidays seems totally ridiculous, yet it seems to happen so easily. Take the photo I selected for the front page – Topkapi Palace – and the woman blatantly ignoring the no photos sign. Actually, signs, as there is one either side of the doorway. If whatever it is lurking behind the door is that good then buy a postcard of it – guaranteed to be a better photo than the average person can take anyway.

Perhaps it’s because I’m a professional photographer that the above case really annoys me, but in the Topkapi Palace there are so few places where photography is banned that it doesn’t seem too tough to STOP taking photos for a minute and just enjoy the grandeur. If people continue to flout rules on photography then the restrictions will become tighter and eventually none of us will be able to take a photo. There are numerous places where staff have specified no flash photography; that might have been swell ten years ago when people invested in a camera and knew how to use it. Today everyone has a camera, be it on their phone, ipod, swinging around their neck or wrist, but it seems that no one knows how to turn the flash off, so they just ignore the warnings and give the crowd quite the strobe effect in museums.

Queues. Well actually, queues don’t annoy me, the lack of them annoy me. I’m not suggesting everyone should be sheep, and if you go to your favourite multi-national burger chain and there is a free counter then go jump straight to it. Boarding for trains, planes, ferries etc though are another kettle of fish. Note to the dozen or so morons that push and shove to get in front of me every time I have started lining up to board a plane; I still got on, the plane didn’t leave me stranded, and I didn’t knock anyone over doing it!!

Disrespect. I mentioned this before in my post http://riceandrockconcerts.com/2010/01/top-5-destinations_travel_photo/ but I need to raise it again. If you are going to a mosque as a non-muslim tourist then how hard is it to dress appropriately? And this isn’t really one for the radicals from the left telling me they shouldn’t make women cover up, nor for the mad right to tell me that they too will do as they like. If that’s your attitude then why on earth are you interested in visiting in the first place? Is it to tick the Blue Mosque (for example) off your checklist of things to do in Istanbul? Plenty of these very people would tut-tut if anyone, much less a tourist, entered their church back in Alabama wearing a boob-tube, so why does the baby go out with the bathwater when you’re on holidays?

Let me know what really gets your blood boiling.

Cheers

Rice and Rock Concerts

Nude Olympics at Maslin Beach, South Australia

Do other tourists annoy you?

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