‘Possibly the heat record of the year’ — with such forecast seems like the only sane thing to do is to flee the town and head for the beach. Somehow, once at the beach, we found ourselves wishing we had an umbrella with us. Hardly any sunbeams peeked through the clouds so we just spent the day sleeping on the beach. Just before leaving in the evening I dressed up to take couple photos.

Having my weight down at about 75 kg and with some vague hints of muscles showing through I though it was now appropriate to be caught on couple photos too. A bit of failure in my expectations, as well, but I will try to work a bit more on it and maybe can have some better photos by the end of the summer. These are the rare moments on beach when I have not ‘accidentally’ lost my swimming shorts :)

Photos taken yesterday on Pärnu beach in cloudy weather and about 27°C. Today, when we were suppose to have thunder, we have clear sky, 33°C inside the room and I am marinating in my sweat on balcony.

No, this time not the auto-butt-portraits of the emotional wreck, but real photos of ship and truck wrecks on one of the Pakri islands by the north coast of Estonia. Photos are from 2007. Seems like at the time of publishing the initial post I did not find these photos appealing without any naked butts on the foreground.

I can not remember the exact location, but I believe it was somewhere there… If You look closer at the last photo with wreck parade You can find some scenes/trucks from the initial post.

Not much to say, rather sad photos. Last Sunday Margus and I carried the kayaks into water and headed to a small island where we were hoping to have some private time with nude sunbathing, as we have done there before. As we approached the island we noticed many birds who did not seem to be in rush to escape from us. We shortly realized, looking at some of the birds trying to flap their wings and haul themselves with the strength of their peaks, that those who were not yet still, were soon to become ..dead.

For the time on the island I thought the birds came there to die because there were hardly any people visiting that tiny island and it was just peaceful place for the final agony. However, as I heard from the evening news, there are currently unusually many dead birds found on the north coast of Estonia.

One of the birds died while we were there.

I quickly prepared a small version of this image a while ago for a profile photo but needed time to do same image with full size photos. After couple of hours spent on it I ran out of patience as I was still far from the perfect result. Flipping through several options I became to like the negative version of the image — mystic and hides the imperfections.

My two weeks of vacation are over, I will likely get a beer, fight off the mosquitoes and sink back to the depression I had forgotten for a short while. Probably no updates here until August.

These are thumbnails of the original photos used for the photomontage:

… from Steven’s bare lines and from Bald, non-age-related …

I was honored to be the official photographer on the Belgian National Day concert. When first proposed a month ago, I declined the offer. Based on my experience with photographing ballet I knew, that the mirror snaps of my camera are heard too well to people on stage and in the audience. Hence I hesitated to be the annoying noise maker. After thinking about it for few days I realized that unlike to a ballet performance where I take up to 700 photos the visual compositions on stage of the classical concert do not vary that much and with the few snaps I would have to take I could wait for the louder notes.

While being privileged to be the only one allowed to walk around during the concert, I tried to be as inconspicuous as possible and worked hard on synchronizing the camera snaps with the high notes. While doing my best to remain invisible, I was disturbed myself by a guy taking photos up on a balcony — with flash! After two flashes I assumed it was some amateur who did not know how to turn off the flash and was probably very ashamed for the accidental flashes, ..well, no! Thanks to the liberty to move around, I quietly rushed to the discourteous fellow and holding back my anger I politely whispered him to disable the flash. I am not a photography expert myself, but I seriously doubt that from that distance that small inbuilt flash was doing anything else besides disturbing everyone.

Photos taken in the Estonia Concert Hall in Tallinn, on July 20th, 2010. For the rest of the photos contact Embassy of Belgium in Tallinn.

Well, I would not call myself an exhibitionist, but I do indeed enjoy my butt naked when I sunbathe on beach or splash around in water. One can guess that some snobs might have problems with me flashing my butt on public beaches. Oh sure, Estonia has couple official nude beaches, but I am not eager to drive 200 km each time I want to drop my shorts.

Estonian laws are somewhat vague regarding the naturism. Since 2007 there has been a draft of a public policy law [EST] which states that nudity, except in designated places, is violation of public policy code ‘if it significantly disturbs purposeful use of the place for someone else’.

I wonder how does my bare rare end significantly obstruct someone’s purposeful use of the beach? …is it the aesthetics? On any day on the beach there is more severe eye-cracking material than my butt, even despite their ‘decent’ beach clothing. …is it the fear for children’s safety? Surely, as soon as I lay down on the sand with butt exposed to snore I transform into a dangerous children trap; one way more dangerous than a ‘decent’ saggy old guy in the water of public beach doing some odd jerky movements under water while looking at children with a grin.

The city government of Tartu seems to receive letters with requests for official nude beach every year and the requests are rejected every year due to lack of interest. This year, although, the discussion of the city government on this subject gave some precious pearls (news report in Estonian). One member of the city government shared that he also goes to swim naked but he does it at his lake, not at a public beach. Apparently the city government of Tartu has an impression that every citizen of Tartu has one’s own lake where one could go skinny dipping, and the only reason to ask for a public nude beach is to perversely exercise their interest of exhibitionism. And here are the pearls from our mayor Urmas Kruuse: ‘..I see no reason why such beach should exist. We could also have a discussion, that maybe someone wants to ski down the hill naked..‘. Sure, dear Mayor, the only thing that I wish more than having a right to avoid tan lines, is a right to freeze off my balls.

The photo — captured on my camera by Aare at the beginning of the sunbathing season in 2006. I thought a black and white version would turn this exposure from indecent to artistic; that is how porn is turned into art too, right? You can have a look at an earlier post for some more decent photos of that day.

If You looked around on my blog before, You know that there are couple nude beach photos out there so I must have some experience with the local nude beaches. I haven’t been to all that are nude officially or by rumors, but here are what I have tried.

Pärnu nude beach. My favorite beach in Estonia and definitely best for beach photo shoots. Too long drive from Tartu though. In fact, not completely legal either. Next to public beach there is official designated beach for ladies and next to that is the beach for those who don’t qualify as ladies and is just known as clothing optional area. As it is not designated area, anyone can point finger at You and scream how Your nudity severely disturbs them and so on and on, but I haven’t heard of it happening there. Be aware — when enjoying the nature in the dunes and bushes on the other side of the ridge, You might stumble upon some sexual activities :) And by what I have heard, not just raunchy gay guys, but by rumors there is also one stud making a day for ladies, up to four ladies a day.

Tartu nude beach. That is where the photo of this post was taken at. It is the closest somewhat nude beach I have. It probably became a nude beach because it is somewhat secluded in the bushes, but it is still not accepted or designated as one. With no warning signs, shocked unaware citizens can be seen running away from the beach. Unfortunately, as the beach is secluded and somewhat deserted, it is also the place where some drunk teenagers like to drive to, careless whether they run someone over, finish up their beverages and shatter the bottles. Stepping on pieces of glass and seeing flabby old guys jerking off in bushes while staring with a drool at sunbathers are quite common on this beach.

Any beach without a lifeguard. Estonians are rather conservative so random guys flaunting their dicks on a beach is not accepted and usually gets loud and angry response, ..unless You are (or play) drunk and dumb. As God is said to protect the dumb and drunk ones, people also know it is useless to ask them to behave. So while stripping down, hold on to a beer can, mumble something, assume a dumb face, and off You go to the water! Indecent exposure and public alcohol consumption are both violations of the public policy code, but people don’t tend to bother calling a police to a lake far far away.

Any beach with a lifeguard. Carried out an experiment last week :) Got my butt naked a bit off the center from the public beach of lake Verevi, close to Tartu, and was laying there for a half an hour before lifeguard walked to me and politely asked me to cover myself. I told him my bare butt was a violation only if someone complained about it and I asked whether somebody did so. I got the poor boy so confused that he finally showed up some anger and said ‘Fine! I am the one who is disturbed and complains!’. Hence, seems that even lifeguard won’t run to handcuff and arrest nudists. Just in case You get charged for violation of the public policy law, the fine is up to 6000 EEK.

My balcony. With thin metal bars as front side it is great place for sunbathing starting from noon to late evening. The metal bars don’t block sun but they also don’t keep much of a privacy from the shopping center 150 meters away or from the 200 windows of the dormitory next to my balcony. Well, I have been acting by my logic — if I don’t put on my prescription glasses to see what is going on around, then they don’t see me either.

Added 23.07.2010 …

Stroomi nude beach. Nude area is short walk to left from the public beach. The nice sand patches are actually often under water, so the bare butt area is then limited to the high reed. Don’t be surprised to see horses strolling by — seems like they are brought there to cool down. I better not think what the horses leave behind there. Not an official nude area, but there are usually some more bare butts around.

Pikakari nude beach. 1.5 km walk from the public beach. Despite the dried weed on sand the beach was very nice. Walking into water deep enough takes ages. The people — all guys, all nude, likely all gays, average age surprisingly low :) I suppose the long walk to the beach is an obstacle for the saggy oldies I am used to see in Tartu beach. We arrived to beach in quite late hour, but by what we heard, earlier in the day there was a lot of man-on-man action in the water.

With about thousand photos of Margus indexed by Picasa I got this idea for his birthday present. For the first time I tried the print on a 60×40 cm foamcore. I was a bit concerned about how the color would turn out on print, but it worked out great and Margus was very pleased with the present.

Quoting Ruslan commenting on Margus walking around in his shorts on the birthday party: “42 years old and still looking like new”.

An example of one chubby fellow :) Well, the photos are from 2 years ago and him looking fat on the photos has been the reason he did not approve publishing these photos until now. My patience with asking him for approval paid off as Andres finally gave me the long waited ‘mhh, ..ok’; he might have had sunstroke when giving the approval though. I am excited I was finally allowed to publish the photos of his hot muscular body!

If You like the view, I mean the window, You can have a look at photos from the same day with another hottie.

Liigutage peput – in translation from Estonian, it would be ‘move butt’. The clip has been haunting me for a week, hence the title matching to the photo :) As You see the hot Summer has arrived to Estonia. With expected 30°C last Sunday we hit the road to figure out the way to Pärnu for the first time this year. After spending every business day under air conditioner and jealously looking at people sunbathing under window the thoughts of Pärnu beach and getting sunburned were all that gave me strength to go on.

There are surely beaches with cleaner water, but even so, I love Pärnu beach. Hopefully this photo is just first of many of the Pärnu beach series. Oh, there were 18 000 people on the beach that day, ..had to do some planning to avoid some not so nice butts taking up the whole background.

As of the video that haunts me — Liigutage peput by Elmayonesa.

Although I really think Ali’s new hair is very cool, I have to warn, that my skills as a barber are not particularly good. It is not a good sign when I fail to notice that the length adjuster of the machine has fallen off and I still keep cutting with bare blades. And then, of course I had to even out the rest of it as well. Even before the accident his hair was shorter than ever before and he was very frightened. You can imagine how he felt after the accident, ..or you can have a look at the second photo :)

Just be warned — when You want me to take photos, You might want to reconsider before asking me to experiment with the hair styling.