Exposing40

Friends. Photography. Adventure.

Tag: Hotels (Page 1 of 2)

Cyclone

February 19, 2022 / / 10 Comments

One of the reasons I decided not to do February Photo Fest this year was because I knew I would (hopefully, Covid-withstanding) be in Mauritius. I made a comment to a couple of people that I’d look like a right smug arse if I posted two weeks’ worth of tropical island photos while most people who look at my blog were trudging through February in the cold. How wrong I was. I’m now on night two of an intense tropical cyclone…

Much like I never imagined I’d learn so much about the basics of epidemiology and how viruses mutate in such a short time, I also didn’t think I’d learn so much about cyclones and the cyclone warning system within 24 hours. Of course, we knew we were coming to Mauritius in cyclone season, we’d done our research. But that told us that on average a cyclone only significantly affects the island once every five years. ‘What are the chances?’ we thought. They’re on their second in three weeks! As my friend said yesterday as we exchanged stories about Eunice and Emnati, “I think Mother Nature is telling us to fuck off her planet.”

Mostly it’s fine and perversely exhilarating. In the daylight, watched from safety, the dance and sway of the trees (I’m in the rainforest at the moment) is hypnotic. One friend said she could meditate to a clip of the trees I put in the group chat. At night though it’s pretty terrifying. Last night I distracted myself taking some photos.

Sinful Sunday

Five Floors Up

November 13, 2021 / / 5 Comments

Work has me travelling again which means photos and messages from hotel rooms are flying between me and others again.

Thursday, 07.24: “Imagine fucking against that window? Palms pushed up against it. All the traffic passing below, nobody realising the show that’s five floors up.”

Sinful Sunday

Window Dressing

October 9, 2021 / / 6 Comments

If you’re someone who regularly sends me nudes then it is almost inevitable that I have, at some point, sent one back to you slightly edited. I can’t help myself; I can’t bear clutter in photos and if there’s anything in the frame that distracts me from the main attraction, I want it gone!

I’ll also sometimes just see an image that’s itching to get out of the original. That happened last week. I had a series of photos appear from American Chap, shot in the window of the hotel where he was staying. They were glorious and hot in their own right – I love how his legs create a frame within the frame and lead your eye to his cock. But almost immediately I saw the potential of a moodier image, one where the drama of the sky was accentuated.

Luckily he’s a laidback and accommodating sort who doesn’t mind at all when I start tinkering with a shot. And, like most men I am attracted to something of an exhibitionist so more than happy for me to share my efforts here.

As I was editing this I remembered a photo I shared here for him a few years back, one of his wife in a hotel window. I love how the photos echo each other. I’m happy that all these years on I’m still receiving a sequence of ones and zeros from him.

Sinful Sunday

Golden Hour

September 19, 2021 / / 5 Comments

It’s been a while since I tagged a post ‘travel’. Two years, in fact. After a far longer gap between trips than I could ever have imagined and the longest since I took my first parent-free holiday after my A levels, this weekend I’ve finally got on a plane again.

I wasn’t sure how I felt about it to be honest. Very early in all of this I made peace with the fact that I probably wouldn’t get overseas again before 2022. But this weekend ended up being the latest our hotel would let us extend a booking that had been made way back in January 2020.

I’m in Gibraltar. The trip isn’t quite what we originally planned. We had been set to travel by train from London through France and Spain and also had a day trip to Morocco planned. None of that is possible (or at least not without a lot of paperwork!) at the moment so EasyJet in and out it was.

From my balcony I enjoy the golden hour and look out over the Strait of Gibraltar to the coastlines of Spain and Morocco. Europe and Africa – two places that have my heart.

Sinful Sunday

Curtain Time

January 26, 2019 / / 26 Comments

I was staying at a hotel last night. It was a mid-range chain so I wasn’t really expecting anything special but when I walked into my room the full length curtains and the lighting above them had a drama to them that made the scene feel almost theatrical.

Sinful Sunday

Do Not Delete

December 3, 2017 / / 21 Comments

Yesterday I read this smoking hot guest post about the effect of a leather skirt over at Girl On The Net’s place (if you haven’t read it yet go and check it out and then come back!). It reminded me of some photos that Exhibit A took of us way back in early 2015.
This morning I went looking for them. I couldn’t find them. They weren’t in the folder with all the other photos we took in that hotel room. Then a little creeping dread came over over me. I remembered deleting those shots. I didn’t like them. I didn’t like the way my tits looked, the weird expressions on my face or the roundness around my middle. I kept them for a short while but every time I looked at them they made me feel bad so eventually I deleted them. After much rummaging in my recycling bin I found them and recovered them.
So what do I see today?
I see a snapshot of a really hot moment and remember a happy 24 hours. I think my tits look pretty good actually. I like the way he’s gripping my leather skirt. I smiled when I saw the green wristband that was such a part of him for so many years. I chuckled at the memory of his dinner turning up with teeth in it. I remember it was the first time he talked to me about Livvy and I feel a little bubble of happiness at everything that has happened on that front since. I think about walking in the New Forest and playing pool. I recall being annoyed that they’d run out of croissants by the time we went down for breakfast and picking all the chocolate out of a pain au chocolate. I grimace that we were charged £42 for two gin and tonics!
And I feel sad that it’s taken almost three years to appreciate the photo.
How many of us have deleted a photo in haste not realising that with it we have closed the door on a whole host of happy memories? How often do we take a photo then fail to appreciate the nuances of the shot because we are focusing in on our perceived flaws? Why are we not kinder to ourselves?
I’m glad I read that leather skirt post. I’m glad I fished this photo out of the recycling. I’m glad I’m sending it out into the wild. And I’m resolving to not delete in haste again and to zone in on the memories of moments, not the bits of me I don’t like.

Leap

May 8, 2016 / / 34 Comments

FullSizeRenderAll week I have been working in hot dusty villages and factories. It has been 35 – 40 degrees and sticky humid. In other words, weather for floaty dresses and spaghetti straps. Except here I have to wear the shalwar kameez. The shalwar (pantaloons) hide the shape of my legs, the kameez (body shirt) must be long to ensure I am not seen to be flashing my genitals, and the orna scarf is an extra layer to ensure the shape of my breasts is not visible. When I get back to my air conditioned room in the city all I want to do is strip off and leap onto the cool white sheets with abandon!

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Sinful Sunday

Snow Drifts

January 17, 2016 / / 14 Comments

Last night I went to bed with my head swimming with images of me lying in the snow in my garden, dark underwear against my white skin and the whiter snow. Close ups of my bare feet dancing in the snow. Snowy nipples. Thankfully the snow wasn’t deep enough this morning for me to realise my daft creative whims.
I actually bloody hate snow. Yes, it’s pretty to look at but an accident on ice that left me with two metal plates and 12 screws in my left ankle means any activity that involves going out in it fills me with fear. And my garden has about 20 steps up to it!
On days like this I would much rather be at my favourite hotel, where the bedding is like snow drifts, than cavorting in the actual snow…
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Sinful Sunday

Sleeping With the Books

September 10, 2015 / / 7 Comments

This post is the first of new ‘series’ that has bugger all to do with being 40 or body positivity, but that’s the problem with F Dot Leonora – her enthusiasm and ‘gentle’ encouragement can get you wrapped up in all sorts of new endeavours. I tweet a lot about hotels, they’ve provided the location for a few of my Sinful Sunday photos and F Dot has used two of my hotel photos to illustrate posts. Every so often I’ll share a little gallery of images and some stories from my travels and if anyone ever wants to use them to illustrate a post, be my guest…
Sleeping With the Books
There’s a Library Hotel in Saigon. Yes, you did read that. A hotel in a library! And a free minibar in every room. This might just be the most perfect concept for a hotel, ever! I stepped into the lobby four days after running a marathon and off the back of a 21 hour journey, muscles screaming with the double fatigue of distance endured, first on my feet and then cramped on a plane. The calming effect of being met by a wall of books was instantaneous.
Of course nothing is quite what it first seems and the free minibar was actually a few soft drinks and one can of beer a day, and I didn’t read anything from the library, travelling as I was with my own little library. But I fell for the marketing and I’m very glad I did. With its comfy sofas, sultry rooftop bar, huge beds, giant shower cubicles, and cheeky alcoves, it would have been the perfect location for a holiday romance or sexual adventure. It was also perfect for rest, recuperation and reflection. It was the start of three weeks just for me, where I can count on one hand the number of conversations I had that extended beyond pleasantries.
I briefly toyed with the idea of setting up a shot of the kind The Other Livvy did such a good job of a few weeks back, but I didn’t really trust the strength of that ladder and the library was off the 24-hour reception. Plus, at the time, my occasional self-portraits only had an audience of one and I couldn’t really be bothered with the effort. Had I know this blog would be born 10 months later I may have tried a little harder. But I quite like these stark shots; naked images of places that are usually peopled can beg your imagination to fill in the missing pieces of a story. What would you have happen on those winding stairs?


 

Introducing Hotel Porn

August 14, 2015 / / 3 Comments
“When you get into a hotel room, you lock the door, and you know there is a secrecy, there is a luxury, there is fantasy. There is comfort. There is reassurance.”
Diana Von Furstenberg

 

Ace Hotel, Shoreditch

Ace Hotel, Shoreditch

I am blaming F Dot Leonora entirely for this offshoot of Exposing 40. I travel frequently for work (and fun!) and anyone who follows me on Twitter is likely to have seen me tweeting about hotels at some point. Rooms have been used as locations for my own self-portraits, and F Dot Leonora has featured my images, some of which include me, some of which don’t.
I have lots of stories from hotels. From sleeping amongst books in a library hotel in Saigon to sharing my bed with cockroaches (and that’s not an insult, I mean the creepy crawly kind!) in an old convent in Uganda; from acting the voyeur and photographing a naked woman stood in a window opposite my room, to laughing hysterically as I and a couple checked into a hotel to discover the double bed was two singles pushed together; waking up to the never-ending horizon of the sea, a mountain panorama or a glittering cityscape…
And of course, as well as the stories there are hundreds of photographs – of beautiful rooms, of quirky features, of me, and of lovers. I’ll share some of the photos and anecdotes here and anyone who wants to use any of my images to illustrate stories as my lovely friend F Dot Leonora has, is more than welcome to – just let me know.
I will be collating all hotel-related posts and images here.

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