Doberman y el fotógrafo

Lavinia, August 13th 2019,

I strongly suspect the Spanish authorities that they are manipulating the clock, or at least the speed with which it is running. And I’m not the only one who notices that. All guests who come here have the same experience; time just flies by. It seems as if the days in Lavinia only count 12 hours … Not really good advertising, or is it? Because is it not said that time flies when you are having fun? We are certainly having a great time.

Just yesterday, the couple who were the first to book, left home. They already booked with full confidence on 22 February, despite the fact that we were still in the midst of the renovations and had no representative photos yet. They followed us very closely through our blog and the photos and told us that they were already considering this as a vacation and were looking forward to meeting us in real life. From the first moment, we felt what treasures they were. They had enjoyed the preparations for their stay so much that they felt it was necessary to bring a gift. Real Zwolle cheese with mustard and balls. Delicious and oh so sweet! I still can’t believe that people who don’t know us at all just bring presents as if they are visiting friends. They have been guests here for two full weeks and have only enjoyed it. The man spent half a day or more floating on a mat in the pool – Wim promptly renamed him “Doberman” (explanation : in Dutch “dobberen” means to float 😉.

He appeared to have never been able to relax as fully as here.

We talked for hours and listened to the wonderfully juicy Dutch way of telling. We often shrieked with laughter with the plastic straightforward expressions he used. Unfortunately, we experienced those two weeks as if it were barely 1 week. It is always a bit of a double feeling when people return home, on my part. You build a bond with every guest who is open to this and then saying goodbye always hurts a little. But there is not much time to reflect on that, because a few hours later new guests arrived.

We meet interesting people over and over again, each with its own story, its own past and future, its own “being” and its own motivation to come to us. So fascinating, so incredibly fascinating.

We are currently honoured by the visit of a famous Belgian photographer, Filip, and his family. He had contacted us to use our resort as a backdrop for a new art project for an exhibition on naturism. This of course fits very closely with part of our mission; promoting and normalizing the naked human body. He does this in an idiosyncratic way with art photos. Amazing, isn’t it ? I think it is incredibly fascinating to be able to experience this closely. At the same time, we also conduct an interview to write an article.

However, it has not been so obvious to find models who want to pose nude. Filip has done a lot of work in advance from Belgium to find Spanish ladies who want to come here to stand in front of his camera. Nudity may also be very awkward for them. We already noticed that yesterday with the first model that came by. An exotic girl that fits beautifully in the decor here in Lavinia. I am really curious about the photos. The setting that Filip created already looked very promising.

Different models have unfortunately already dropped out, and that still causes a bit of stress with the aforementioned … because without models you can unfortunately not make portraits. And booking extra days at Lavinia is not an option, due to full. So we try through naturist associations in Spain to get models here. Thumbs up!

This morning a completely different type of model came with her mother. It became tricky for a while because apparently “madre” was not informed by her daughter that she would pose naked. But dear daughter knew what she wanted and went as an accomplished diva and as if she were a professional model who had been in the business for years, assuming all kinds of poses. Only laughter was something that went less well for her. The nice thing was that this time I was allowed to assist instead of Philip’s wife. And this meant taking care of the exposure with a special reflective screen, finding suitable locations on the domain and so on. Not easy not to interfere too much, because I was not allowed to influence his artistic freedom too much of course. But it remains a project of him and Lavinia together, so we found a nice balance to hopefully achieve nice shots. It was wonderful to see the passionate photographer at work, how he was completely absorbed in what he was doing, how focused he was on the exposure, background, accessory and what else he studied in every pose. Until now I only knew him as a person with his family and not in his professional habitat.

Because Filip and his family are Belgians, and therefore less open than the Dutch, it was a bit of a wait and see if they would feel comfortable enough to thrive and open up. And perhaps it is the sky here above Alicante, but they too are wonderfully warm people. We already have had fascinating conversations, laughed a lot and teased each other. A BV without arrogance …

The rest of the week also promises to be fascinating, because if everything goes according to plan, photo shoots will follow and Nick and Lins, the @Naked Wanderings professional bloggers, will stay for three days. Really looking forward to meeting them!

We never thought we were going to have such a fascinating and beautiful life.

Gracias Lavinia!

Hasta luego,

Annemie or Ana