Colin Manning

I went to the Spencer Tunick Post Installation Get Together this evening. I expected it to be some sort of event, but it was just an informal get together. Many people were talking to each other about their experiences of the photo shoots. Everyone was very positive. I wonder if I have been too harsh. One woman told me about another shoot yesterday in a car park. It was for women only and involved some foam. That raised an interesting question in my mind. If Tunick's thesis is that nudity need not be indecent, it can be art, then why segregate men and women. If nudity is asexual, why are so many of his photographs sex-specific? I learned a valuable lesson from that woman, however. She was over the moon to have been involved. If she was happy, why should I be offended on her behalf? This put me in mind of the naked leprechauns, and I realised that I have no right to be offended on their behalf either. She asked me if I would do it all again given the chance. That was a useful que...

Weeks before, in the pub, it seemed like a great idea. But as the deadline for American photographer Spencer Tunick's naked photo shoot approached, my buddies dropped out one by one. In the end I got a taxi to the grounds of Blarney Castle. The taxi driver pointed out two protesters in the distance. It's not that long ago in Ireland that they might well have been real protesters. But it was clear that they were just having a laugh. I was able to tell the driver what their placards said long before we could actually read them: Careful Now & Down With This Sort of Thing . I wondered if Spencer Tunick would get the joke. I arrived as instructed at 3am. It was night and it was cold. Photography, by its nature, doesn't generally happen at night so there was no reason for us all to be there so early. It was almost two hours before anything at all happened. While the weather in Ireland is variable, it's easy to look up when sunrise will happen. There was no g...