The project has been nominated for an Online Campaign for the Midlands Media Awards which takes place this Thursday.

I would really appreciate your support and your vote so that the project can win an award. I can’t do this without you!

It only take two clicks to vote on this LINK.

I’ve made a little video appeal. Hope you like it! Your vote really counts. 

Thank you!

Karen

NEWS JUST IN! Birmingham UK 4am event!

The 4am Project will be hosting a special 4am event this Saturday 24th April (at 4am!) on behalf of the Birmingham City of Culture bid!

The event will take place at Birmingham Museum Collections Centre. This is a rare opportunity to photograph the wealth of archived articals and artifacts that are not on show to the public at the Birmingham Museum. From classic motor vehicals, to stuffed animals and interesting curiosities! It’s a huge place, with plenty to see and photograph. The Museums Collection centre usually only lets the public in 2 or 3 times a year, and have been kind enough to open it’s doors to the 4am Project this Saturday!

From the Birmingham Museum Collections Centre website:

The 1.5 hectare site, close to Duddeston Station, holds hundreds of thousands of objects. Among the collections are steam engines, sculptures, an entire collection of Austin, Rover and MG motor cars, a red phone box and even a Sinclair C5

THERE ARE ONLY 30 TICKETS AVAILABLE on this occasion. Get your tickets now, first come, first served, and don’t forget to set your alarm clocks!

NOTE: Please upload your photographs to flickr and tag them 4amproject and for this occasion, please also use the tag bmag as the City Of Culture bid team would like to showcase some of the photos from the event. For more instructions about flickr and tagging, please visit the 4am Project website.

There is a car park on the site, but please be on time as the car park will close and be locked for the duration of the event.

Please visit Eventbrite to register for you free ticket!

I hope you can come along, experience the 4am Project and meet other photographers!

Follow the 4am Project on twitter!

Karen

What was fantastic this year was that even more photographers wanted to get together and meet up with other people in their areas and take part in a 4am photo walk! I did my best to try and help orchestrate that and put people in touch with eachother, but I’m hoping to have a dedicated page put on the website so people can add their towns/cities and add their names, which I think will really help everyone to get in touch with eachother for next time.

I am going to blog about those walks, and first up is the 4am photo walk that I organised in my home city of Birmingham, UK.

Birmingham is actually one of the finalists for the UK’s City Of Culture 2013 along side Derry/Londonderry, Norwich and Sheffield. Thanks go out to Birmingham City Of Culture bid team for helping to organise the opening of Birmingham’s Museum and Art Gallery.

It was quite a chilly morning but 23 hardly photographers turned up in time for 4am armed with their cameras and tripods.

 The first (and third) videos were made by the City Of Culture team & it was a video that went out to announce the ‘Night At The Museum’ The 2nd video is one I made and I asked participants how they had heard about the 4am Project and if they enjoyed themselves!

Sit back, relax and take a few minutes to watch all the beautiful images of 4am in Birmingham.

Thank you to everyone who supported the project and came out to take part in the Birmingham event!

Say hello on twitter! Email: hello@4amproject.org

By Karen Strunks, Birmingham UK

It’s been an exciting week, and I am delighted to be able to announce that 4ip and Screen West Midlands are supporting the 4am Project!

4ip is part of Channel 4 which helps to support and invest in digital media enterprises, and Screen West Midlands offers support, advice and funding for film, television and digital media.

4ip and Screen West Midlands investment and business support is a great boost for the 4am Project which will soon entering it’s second year! (My, how time flies!)

4iphave made an annoucement on their blog:

To the question that we always address when we announce a new investment, why 4iP? For me the 4am Project is a collaborative project that takes art to the mainstream; everyone has a camera, whether you’re passionate about your darkroom, or snapping something on a mobile phone, we are now able to capture every minutiae of our busy lives and share them with the wider world. The element of the 4am Project that really works for me is its focus. What do people see at a particular time on a particular day? At its core this is a project that is about collaboration, participation and discoverability. It’s also an example of an existing site that fits with our criteria beautifully. In order to continue to grow and capitalise on the success that it’s already achieved, the 4am Project needed both financial and business support. Through an initial project investment we’re able to help take Karen and her project to the next stage and a wider audience.

I wrote over on my personal blog:

Along with the support from 4ip and ScreenWM, the outcome and ideas generated at the Crossover Lab course I attended recently and my own plans, it’s going to be a very busy and creative year!

I’ve got stuck in already and my days are whizzing past with uber productivity. This productivity is taking the form of lots of; phone calls, emails, meetings, tweeting, blogging, phone calls & emails. I’m enjoying meeting new people, whether that be online or in person. Connecting with people who love the idea of the 4am Project and want to help support it and people  who have their own projects & dreams that they are working on which creates inspiration.

Last April I made a video (well, three videos actually!) about how the 4am Project started, how I spread the word, the help I received and problems encountered (and overcome!).

On the 4th Arpil 2010 the 4am Project will be celebrating it’s first birthday! Why not try something different, join other photographers from around the globe and take a photograph of your world at 4am! Get your friends involved, go on a 4am photo walk, explore your neighbourhood at an often unseen time!

If you would like to support the project by sponsorship, donating prizes for participants or you would like to contribute an idea, it would be great to hear from you. Drop me a line hello@4amproject.org or get in touch on twitter.

I’ll end with a BIG thank you to 4ip and Screen West Midlands for their support!

Put the 4th April in your diary, start charging your camera batteries and join in the global photographic project! 

What’s your view of the world at 4am? 

Toa Payoh, Singapore by Mo Zhuang Ze

This next 4am event will mark  the 4am Project’s 1st birthday! Here’s how it all started……. 

My name’s Karen Strunks, and my curiosity about 4am began in 2008 

I live in Birmingham – the UK’s second largest city – and after a night out, I was driving from one side of the city to the other. It was around 4am and I was really struck by the cityscape. Streets and roads normally teeming with people and traffic were deserted. The city was asleep and it felt like I had it all to myself. I liked it. 

In 2008, I went out to take my first pictures at 4am in Birmingham. I’ve made some of them available on my blog. I’ve been asking readers of my blog for their suggestions of places they’d like to see at 4am. They decide where to go, and I take the photos, so it’s become a collaboration. 

When I started to think about how the idea could be extended, the 4amproject was born. 

I’d like to involve you in this project. What will YOU be doing at 4am on 4th April 2010? 

Put the date in your diary, set your alarm, and take a picture of your world at 4am. 

I’m going to get some friends together and go out and have a 4am party. Why not do the same? Get some of your friends and family involved too. Or simply set the alarm, take a picture, and go back to the land of nod. 

Whatever you’re doing, it’d be great if you could get involved and play a part in building up a big picture of the world at 4am. 

Crabs On Ice by Bruce Kerridge, Sydney, Australia

In the last year over 2,000 photographs have been taken by 4am project photographers from over 20 countries! People have blogged about their 4am experience, newspapers and magazines have written about it, there has even been radio and tv coverage! 

Anyone can take part, all you need is a camera, whether that be an dslr, a camera phone or anything in between! Just sign up for a free flickr account,  and tag your photos ’4amproject’. The  Get Involved page has a few more details which you may find helpful. 

This year I am opening the door to sponsorship, advertising, and will be trying to source some prizes for ’4am-ers’ so the project can grow and reach a wide audience, so if that’s something you are interested in, then please get in touch. 

Lonely Shooter by Luis Amaral, Portugal

If you have any questions or suggestions, you will find the 4am project on twitter, or you can send me an email hello@4amproject.org, and you can join the 4am Project group on Flickr too. I’d love to hear from you! 

There are a few little blips on the website at the moment, please bear with me whilst I get them fixed. 

Roll on the 4th April!

It’s Christmas eve, so it’s a good time to bring you some 4am festive photo treats!

By Michael1759 - Las Vegas

By Nicky Getgood - Kington

By Ian T Edwards - Birmingham

By Kington Town - Kington

By Kington Town - Kington

By cwcoates.t21 - Kington

By Nicky Getgood - Kington

By Nicky Getgood - Kington

By Nicky Getgood - Kington

Thanks again to everyone who took part on the 6th December. I’ll be blogging your pictures and blogs in the new year.

Remember to put the 4th April 2010 in your diary!

Merry Christmas everybody!

I’ve put together a round up of the 4am Project event on 6th December. Thank you to everyone who took part! Over the coming weeks I shall be featuring your fab photos on the blog and putting in links to the photographers who have blogged about their 4am photo experience.

As part of the 4am Project I organised a photo event on 6th December which was held at the Bodies Revealed exhibition in my hometown of Birmingham.  I’ve had lots of great feedback and I’m glad you enjoyed the event!

Lots of amazing photographs of the exhibition have been submitted to flickr!

I took the opportunity to ask some of the photographers how they heard about the 4am Project and if they enjoyed the event! Thank you everyone who took part in the video.

And there is more! Being a world wide project, lots of other photographers from around the world set their alarms and headed out in the wee small hours with their cameras to capture their world at 4am. Take a look!

If you would like to take part in the next 4am Project event, put the 4thApril in your diary! Maybe get some friends together too! You can keep up to date with all the 4am Project news on the website, and you can follow the project on twitter too @4amproject

A big thank you to the sponsors of the Birmingham event. Hello Digital, Big Cat PR and of course the Bodies Revealed exhibition.

Photograph by Supercoolkp

By Karen Strunks, Birmingham, UK

Thanks to everyone for their support! Only 10 days to go until 4th April. Remember to tell your friends and families!

Tune in ONLINE tomorrow – Sunday 1st of March – Rhubarb Radio - from 1pm GMT

Just click the Listen Now button on the top right hand side of the page and listen live!

I’ll be talking about the 4am Project with hosts of Sunday Social show, Mark Steadman and Micheal Grimes.

Hope you will join me!  

Karen Strunks, The 4am Project