What did I learn from the 4am Project?

Four intrepid souls gathered outside Penylan Library at 4am to wander off around Roath taking photos of what we saw. Which wasn't a great deal, to be honest - it's a very quiet time of day, obviously.

But I get now why it's 'magical'. It is that time between night and morning that so few people normally see. That said, there are still plenty of people about in Roath - from the inevitable Saturday night crowd in search of a kebab to a guy walking his dog in a yellow hi-vis jacket.

Here's some things I learnt about 4am:

Four people for an event is a good turnout
Fried chicken is the snack of choice
It's a great time to find a cab
Cardiff's buildings aren't that well lit at night
This feels like a safe city even in the middle of the night
I should have taken a tripod with me

I'm relatively new to photography - recently bought an Olympus PEN - and the challenge of taking photos at night was quite difficult. It's not easy to find interesting things and setting up to get a good shot was beyond what I've learnt so far. Thank goodness for a 'night scene' setting on the camera which saved the day. It's fired me up to learn more though and I've dug out the dummies' guide again.

Overall it was a great experience. I've met some interesting new people, added a few more flickr contacts and got a great insight into how social media can take a simple (very good) idea global. It was also lots of fun - looking froward to next year already and signed up for the Cardiff Photomarathon to keep my eye in!

Check out the pics from Roath here; the whole 4am Project is here and here's a post about the event on the Guardian Cardiff blog.

Here's a selection of my pics: