Hardy souls strip for nude photoshoot
More than 2,500 hardy souls braved torrential rain early today for a massive nude photoshoot by acclaimed contemporary artist Spencer Tunick.
Volunteers stripped naked in Dublin’s Docklands for the dawn spectacle, under grey clouds and fighting a chill wind blowing off the Irish sea.
Tunick, who has been documenting the live nude figure in public since 1992, has created scores of images in spectacular locations including New York, Amsterdam and Mexico city.
This is his second Irish nude installation this week coming after Tuesday’s 1,100-strong event at Blarney Castle in Co Cork organised as part of the Cork Midsummer Festival.
Some of the eager participants for today’s event, all of whom were over 18 years of age, began arriving around 10.30pm yesterday to camp out in advance of the massive outdoor project.
The volunteers undressed for the first of two photoshoots just after 5am.
Three shots were planned but that had to be cut to just two because of the weather and poor lighting.
The first took place at South Wall and the models were told to lie down and stand up in various poses as Tunick snapped away.
The second shot took place near Poolbeg Power Station and passing freight ferries coming into Dublin Port honked their horns in support of the naked mob.
“It wasn’t raining for most of the first set up on the South Wall but it started raining just before 6am and that was at the tail end of that, so for the second set up it was raining,” a spokeswoman for the event said.
“(But) people were in great form.”
In exchange for taking part, the models will receive a limited edition photograph from the event, which was staged by the Dublin Docklands Development Authority.
Tunick is recognised worldwide for his elaborately posed still and video images of multiple nude figures in public settings.
The American photographer has snapped more than 75 nude installations all over the world, including Montreal, Melbourne, Lyon, London, Newcastle-Gateshead, Santiago, and Barcelona.
The photograph from his Greenpeace project on Aletsch Glacier in Switzerland was named Time Magazine’s Picture of the Year 2007.
