Watch embedded video here.

As you can see, they had the city streets to themselves. How often do we get to experience that?!

Meet the 4am Project Crew: David, David, Adrienne, Lee, Steph & Dale. Thanks for taking part guys and girls!

And here is Lee’s photographs from the night……Great shots!

Why not get together with friends as well on 17th October? Make it a social occasion!

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

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!

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.

Apologies for lack of posting! I haven’t abandoned you or the 4am project. I have just been overwhelmed with your response to the project and I am busy working away behind the scenes to catch up with everything – checking out your photos, collating information and statistics and making plans for the 4am Project’s future. Please bear with me!

I will be featuring some of your photos taken on 4th April at 4am – there has been over 1300 submissions!

To answer the most frequently asked question: Yes, the 4am Project is continuing. In the next week or two I will be asking for you input and ideas about the project.

Thank you to everybody who took part and who has helped in making the 4am Project a success! It couldn’t have been done without you.

I have a made a 3 part video about the origins of the project and how it all happened, and it’s future if you would like to know a bit more about where the idea began and how it all happened.

Normal blog posting will resume very soon! Thanks again everybody

By Marte Mísla Mikaelsdottír, Hamburg, Germany

It’s All Over Now Baby Blue

You must leave now
Take what you need, you think will last
But whatever you wish to keep, you better grab it fast.
Yonder stands your orphan, with his gun
Crying like a fire in the sun.
Look out the saints are comin’ through
And it’s all over now, baby blue.

The highway is for gamblers, better use your sins
Take what you have gathered from coincidence
The empty-handed painter from your streets
Is drawing crazy patterns on your sheets
This sky too, is folding under you
And it’s all over now, baby blue.

All your seasick sailors, they are rowing home
All your reindeer armies, are all going home
The lover who just walked out your door
Has taken all his blankets from the floor
The carpet too, is moving under you
And it’s all over now, baby blue.

Leave your stepping stones behind, someone calls for you
Forget the dead you’ve left, they will not follow you
The vagabond who’s rapping at your door
Is standing in the clothes that you once wore
Strike another match, go start anew
And it’s all over now, baby blue

Poet Rives does 8 minutes of lyrical origami, folding history into a series of coincidences surrounding that most surreal of hours, 4 o’clock in the morning.

Is 4am the worst possible hour to be awake? Perhaps, it’s the best!

Don’t forget, if you already have photos taken at 4am, upload them to flickr.com, tag them ’4amproject’ and they will be featured in the gallery.