Speaking about my photography career and the 4am Project

At Fotofilia Photography Studio

Last month I gave two talks about my photography career and the 4am Project at Fotofilia Photography Studio. 

David Rann who owns Fotofilia ask me to come along and give two 90 minute talks to his two photographic societies; The Club and F2. 

I spoke about how I turned my passion into a career, and how the 4am Project began and captured the imaginations of photographers around the world.

Fotofilia 4am Project Walk

With a global 4am Project date coming up soon David got some hardy photography souls together and headed out into the rain drenched streets of Birmingham! Check out his blog post about the morning and his DSLR photographs. Thanks for organising the walk and for inviting me along to speak to your photo societies David!

Have a look at everything that is happening at Fotofilia. Not only is there a fabulous photo studio for hire (at a great price), there are classes and lessons and courses. David arranges exhibitions as well as running the photographic societies.

What David said about my talks:

“Karen has now delivered two presentations to the photographic societies we run here at Fotofilia. I had wanted to bring Karen along to speak for some time, having heard many great things about the 4am Project and admiring the innovative concept. 

On both occasions, the presentations were fun, informative and inspirational - (anything that can encourage our members to consider getting up at 4am to take pictures must be recommended). The presentations were well paced and friendly, with any questions being handled honestly and concisely"


If you would like to hire me to talk photography, 4am Project, communities or social media, then give me a shout! 

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The 4am Project event in Birmingham

What a weekend!

It was all about photography and the often unseen time of 4am as photographers from around the world took part in the 4am Project at 4am on Sunday 15th April.

This was the 4th annual 4am Project event. 4th?! I can't believe it. The time has flown by since I launched this global project April 2009!

It was great to see groups of photographers, as well as those who were simply curious, start to make plans for their 4am photo walk whether that was solo or in groups.

Oh, and I did a radio interview with BBC Wales about the 4am Project and with one of the organisers of the Cardiff 4am photo walk, Matt Appleby. Thank you BBC Wales!




For my city of Birmingham I organise an event on each 4am Project date, and this year I announced a 4am photo walk in Birmingham city centre meeting at St Philips Cathedral.

As is always the way when you organise something, or even throw a party, you have that moment when you think, 'Will anyone turn up?!'. I needn't have worried though. A dozen hardy 4am photographers braved the chilled city air armed with their cameras and tripods to take part in the 4am photo walk in Birmingham! Thank you all for coming along! 

I didn't have a set plan or route for this photo walk, so we all had a little chat and decided that we would start at the St Philips Cathedral area and stay there for about 15 minutes, then wander the short distance to Victoria Square, and then along New Street.

From experience I've found that you don't cover as much ground as you think you will in the 4am-5am photography slot, and it turned out that by the time we reached 5am we had gone half way along New Street and stopped quite conveniently (or perhaps we were drawn to!), a 24 hour McDonalds. Not the classiest of joints, but at least it gave us all a chance to step in from the chilly air and have a nice warming drink.

Here we are!

And here are some of the amazing photographs of Birmingham that were taken at 4am on Sunday morning. 



And of course, it wasn't only 4am photographers in Birmingham that took part! The photos are still coming in on Flickr - check out what other people's views are of 4am! 



A HUGE thank you to everyone who took part in the 4am Project! And thank you for your tweets, and blog posts and for sharing the news!

You can follow the 4am Project on twitter @4amproject and visit the website 4amproject.org

Until next time! :)


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