Nude volunteers win Tunick praise for baring it

Thousands of volunteers taking part in Spencer Tunick's nude photo shoot at Poolbeg in Dublin

Allison Bray

DRAMATIC images of thousands of naked people captured by a controversial artist were almost scuppered by horrendous weather.

The images of nearly 4,000 people who braved wind and rain to participate in Spencer Tunick's nude photo shoots have been put on the internet.

But an accompanying greeting from the American artist, thanking the participants who "went beyond their limits", reveals that the Irish weather seriously threatened at least one of the shoots.

The images were taken at the South Wall in Poolbeg and the Grand Canal Dock in Dublin, and Blarney Castle and Cork city last summer.

Tucker revealed he was close to throwing in the towel during the frigid pre-dawn shoot in Dublin -- but kept going due to the enthusiastic roars from the crowd.

And that in Cork the participants jumped into cold streams and were covered in the foam made partly from Murphy's beer.

The 1,300 volunteers who took part at the shoot at Blarney Castle and Cork city, and more than 2,600 who took part in the Dublin Docklands shoots, will this month receive limited edition photographs of the installations chosen by the artist himself.

And images are available to be viewed in an online exhibition of the project at www.tunickireland.com.

The project website will be available for the next four months.

The striking photos which the artist calls "human landscapes" include images of a sea of people looking up at the first rays of dawn as they sit on a bank of the Liffey.