At 4.30 on a Sunday morning, Helsinki's Market Hall in the South Harbour is not surprisingly a relatively deserted venue. Not so last weekend, however, as nearly 2,000 gathered there to receive instructions in the half-light just before dawn.

   

This was not the outpouring of some late-late party, but the arrival from various parts of the city - and from farther afield, too - of willing participants in a live performance by the New York artist Spencer Tunick, to be photographed in and around the Market Square.

   

Tunick arrives, climbs onto a stepladder, picks up a megaphone, and declares "Helsinki's smartest people are here today". There is laughter and applause, and then everybody starts to take their clothes off...

The clothes are neatly packed

into plastic bags to await their owners' return. It is surprisingly chilly for a summer morning, but then it is still the Hour of the Wolf. The thermometer shows 13°C. This does not deter the throng. The shared excitement is released in an outburst of cheery conversation.

   

"Astonishing, really, the way a sense of community developed almost instantly, even though nobody knew anyone beforehand", remark Katri and Petteri Parovuori, who have come down from Nastola for the occasion.

   

Soon the dawn puts a pinkish sheen on the lower edges of the clouds on the horizon, and the morning light filters into the Market Square. The sight of nearly 2,000 naked people strolling in good order onto the square is striking to say the least.

   

The first picture is taken close to the Presidential Palace. The models stand with their faces towards a cherry-picker truck, while Tunick mans his camera on the aerial platform above them.

   

"Don't talk, please", he urges, but his words have little effect. It is only when someone yells out "SHUT UP!", appreciably more forcefully, that the crowd settles.

For the second image

, Tunick wants his models to lie on the ground on Katarinankatu, one of the narrow streets leading off the square. He forbids the people from smiling. The carpet of naked bodies quietens and the shutter clicks.

   

"That was definitely the chilliest bit. Then on the other hand it was surprisingly warm if you were in there in the middle of the crowd. It must have been worse to be out on the edges", says Mikko Autio, who ranks the event as one of the highpoints of the summer.

   

The group then moves on to the third venue, around the famous Havis Amanda statue. For once, the charming Amanda does not need to be alone in her birthday suit, as she is joined around the fountain (switched off for the night) by 1,900 others. They strike a pose.

   

Suddenly, the water is switched on. The people squeal and scream like stuck pigs.

"It was an amazing moment"

, says Tunick afterwards. He steadfastly denies that he had anything to do with the timing of the return of the water.

   

Spencer Tunick expressed his satisfaction at the Helsinki shoot. "It was easier to work with people here than anywhere else in the world", he enthuses. "I mean, it was as if they knew precisely how I wanted them to pose. And the morning light was really beautiful!"

   

Tunick has carried out his Nude Adrift performance/installation events in cities around the world since 1994. He describes the works as "organised abstracts", and is adamant that the use of the naked body has no sexual context whatsoever in his art. His models tended to agree. "There was not much more to this than the experience of going to sauna with a large group", commented Petteri Parovuori.

The photographer finds a good deal more understanding

for his work in the more liberal climate of Europe than he does at home in the United States. Nakedness remains a classic taboo in the mixed-up, muddled-up land of the push-up bra and the thong, and Tunick has even found himself in court for one of these performances.

   

Admittedly he won the case, but he still finds it strange that he is a respected artist in Europe and yet that police in the States attempt to arrest him nearly every time he arranges a Nude Adrift gathering.

   

On this occasion, the event - put together jointly by The Helsinki City Art Museum and the magazine Image - went off very smoothly according to police. The immediate area had been closed to traffic and only the models and representatives of the press were permitted to enter.

   

The only people who were turned away were a handful of nighthawks returning from nightclubs and bars, and doubtless many of them would have put the sight down to temporary hallucinations after one or two too many.