This morning, I decided to get up and finally participate in a 4am project event. I’ve considered it before, but never got around to actually either preparing accordingly, setting my alarm, or actually having the will or desire to wake my good lady up, in order for me to sneak out of the house.
Well, this year – I had no good lady in my bed to wake up and originally I had no plans to participate, due to not knowing anyone else doing anything, my usual conspirator Essitam being on a plane to NZ and just because it’s 4am in the morning!
Well, something must have been going for me this year – as I just wasn’t able to sleep. It got to about 2.00am and I was checking some tweets on my twitter feed and saw people preparing for the 4am event. So, as I wasn’t sleepy in the least, I decided “sod it, up you get and do what you’ve been banging on about for the last few years…” – not expecting to participate, I had given my trusted 10mm lens to Essitam to take with her on her holidays – so I grabbed whatever was closest to hand, which was my 50mm f1.8 Nikon lens and my camera, without my camera bag, and at the last minute, grabbed my tripod…
Now, the next question was… where? I guessed that most cities would be well covered, so I considered heading to Aldridge or Brownhills – but these are small village centres and a lot of interesting places have residential overlooks, plus I couldn’t think of anything immediately that I wanted to actually photograph.
So, I decided to head off to Brum after all. I headed in to town and parked up on Colmore Row in the town centre, next to the Cathedral. My plan was to take some shots of the Cathedral, then walk down to Victoria Square and Chamberlain Square and if I had time, move on to Brindley Place.
I hadn’t planned that at 3.30am in the morning there will be people leaving clubs and boy did I see some sights. Unbelievable arguments between couples, “mates” and police sirens wailing. Shouts, screams, prostitutes, homeless people… it really opened my eyes. The quiet and desolation of these urban streets, so busy during the day, gave me a whole new perspective. So, with some nerves, as 4.00am approached, I grabbed my tripod and camera, put on my coat and set up in the grounds of the Cathedral.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to obtain some of the shots I needed because of the fixed focal length of the lens I was using. I also wasn’t able to spend the time I wanted to set up the shots because of the need to “move on” fairly quickly when I was spotted by the last remnants of Birmingham’s party people. A few “Oi mate, mate, MATE!”; “will you take my picture mate” and then being greeted with a bare arse was a particular highlight… needless to say, that picture never actually got taken…
I was quite happy with some of the results from the Cathedral – well, in the main. I then threw my stuff in the car and drove a few hundred yards down the street and parked up at the edge of Victoria Square. From here, I walked towards Chamberlain Square and took a few shots of the Chamberlain Fountain, with Paradise Forum in the background. I was desperate to spend some time walking around the library, but again – some of Birmingham’s nightlife made me think better of it. The brutalist architecture of the Birmingham Library is an amazing thing. I, for one, will be sad to see it go. The whole area was never realised properly, the underpasses, the “urban garden” and the exterior of the library has been left to rot, sadly. I really wanted to walk around these walkways and underpasses – but common sense got the better of me and I decided against it. I will miss these when they’re gone – but I understand why they are going. They’re not the nicest of places during the day and at night, they were even more foreboding.
From Chamberlain Square, I decamped to Victoria Square and took a few shots of the Museum and also the council house building. I tried to get some shots of the fountain, which I was very surprised to still see working at that time of the night (and it had no-one in it – despite the outside temperature still being quite warm!). A few more shots, and 4.30am and I was pretty much done.
I headed back home to Walsall and grabbed one last shot of the building that houses my flat and I was finished. I spend about an hour uploading to Flickr, watching the #4amproject hash-tag on Twitter to see what other people were up to, and a quick look at the 4am project Flickr group and everything was bought to a conclusion.
About an hour of not very pleasant sleep and here I am on Sunday morning writing this.
It was a great experience and something I definitely want to try again next year – but hopefully with a bigger group and definitely with my partner in crime, Essitam – I missed her eye for a good shot and her good company. Some of the photos on this page are some of the photos I took during my trip.
For more photos and general musings, my Flickr page can be seen by following this link…
