Such is the power of networks and friendships that people like me are willing to sacrifice their night’s sleep for someone else’s harebrained idea. In this case it was for Karen Strunks, who has become so fascinated with photographing places at four in the morning that she wants everyone else to do it too.

Over the last few months Karen has put an enormous amount of time and energy into this project. Using Twitter and the 4am Project website (kindly set up by Mark Steadman) she has galvanised support around the world.

For Birmingham, Karen had arranged to meet some people in town to make a bit of a social event of it. More than 30 people turned up, including a number of children.

We started at Biringham New Street Station, who had kindly agreed for us to be there, and then moved on to the wholesale market. At about five o’clock we descended upon the cafe, the staff of which dealt with the sudden influx in good spirit: and provided enough breakfast to feed me for a week:

My breakfast on 4 April 2009. Gulp. (Photo by Nicky Getgood.)

• Possibly related posts

  1. 4am Project

The ‘Flash Swap’ was the group’s first publicity event, intended to raise the profile of their campaign for a dedicated photography gallery in Birmingham.

Although hidden away in a dark corner of the Custard Factory, it was well attended. All the walls of the spacious gallery were adorned with photographs brought along by the visitors.

The exhibition grew throughout the day as people brought along their photographs. Then at five-thirty Patrick Wilcox, founder of Birmingham Photospace, gave an introduction and started the swap.

We had all been given one sticker for each photo that we’d brought, and could use these to claim photos of a similar size and quality from someone else. Although there were reports of people removing stickers or covering someone else’ with their own, most people behaved themselves.

I came away with three photographs: ‘Luminarium‘ by Julia Gilbert, which was taken inside an exhibition at Birmingham’s ArtsFest; ‘Mondrian was here‘ by George Daley, taken behind Five Ways shopping centre in Birmingham; ‘Crazy Paving’, also by George Daley, taken outside The Public in West Bromich. (The former two are displayed on this page.)

I took a few for swapping. I know the two of my cat Pepper were claimed, and I think the one of the deck chairs may have been too (all three are displayed on this page).

• Possibly related posts

  1. Birmingham photography: is the university planning a gallery in Eastside?
  2. Setting up a charity for a Birmingham photography gallery
  3. Birmingham photo space

(And yes, it’s the same Karen who squandered her valuable spare time making the photo story of Pooh and Heffalump.)

Visit 4am Project

• Possibly related posts

  1. Taking photos at four in the morning
  2. Birmingham Forum
  3. HTML5 Readiness