He's naked and the day is long as Herald man Conor Creighton braves the freezing early morning for nude photo shoot.

When you're surrounded by 3,000 naked people, it's the few running around fully dressed who make heads turn.

That's how it was Saturday morning in the East Docklands when Spencer Tunick brought his mass nude art collaboration to Dublin.

Far from checking out the naked flesh dangling in front of you, it was Spencer Tunick's assistants, skipping through the crowds in tight jeans and impractical T-shirts that really got your blood racing.

Spencer Tunick has been travelling the world since the early Nineties, finding willing subjects to pose naked for him. Before coming to Ireland to direct two shots, one in Cork and one in Dublin, he set up a website asking for volunteers.

Within a few days the site was already receiving hundreds of hits. By the time Spencer arrived in this country, registration had closed. The people of Dublin, just like those from Montreal, New York, Melbourne and Mexico City, were more than ready to get butt-naked for the sake of art.

So at 3am on Saturday the buses left from outside the Customs House to drive out to the docks to the photo location. The instructions were to bring a towel and the warning was that anyone who seemed intoxicated would not be allowed to participate.

So far, it looked like half our bus would be excluded from the shoot. I was with four friends and we'd demolished half a bottle of whisky beforehand. Upstairs, a bottle of vodka was being passed around between our new Kiwi mates, and there were enough bad jokes and half-hearted sing-songs both upstairs and downstairs to suggest that sleep had not been the highest priority for the majority of us.

Far from feeling like we were about to take part in an art installation, we could have been off to some secret warehouse party in a dodgy part of town.

The buses stopped at the end of Pigeon House Road and we set off on foot to the end of the pier. When we reached the end we were told to sit and await instructions from Spencer.

Tension

The tension was palpable. Where was Spencer? Would he arrive by helicopter? Would he channel his instructions through the voice of God? And why, if we're all going to be flashing each other, is everyone going to such efforts to find faraway spots for a discreet pee?

As it turned out instructions were issued on pieces of paper, and then it was just a matter of waiting. When Spencer finally arrived, it wasn't on the back of a winged beast but on the top of a painter's lift. He made a speech. Without us he'd be working with trees, he said.

He appreciated us, and then with the type of charisma that not even Frank Sinatra could have mustered, he asked us to strip and we did. Our clothes went into clear plastic bags. Some clever people had brought markers with them to write on the bags. We hadn't. If we were unlucky we might be going home in dresses and tights.

Now the most important thing to remember when naked and surrounded by other naked people is protocol. Maintaining eye contact is crucial.

Women often accuse men of talking to other parts of their body rather than their face. In certain cases and with certain people, it can be hard to avoid.

When fully-clothed, with those "other parts" swinging in front of you, as prominent as McDonald's golden arches, it's almost impossible. Next, you can't forget for a second that you're naked. Greeting someone with a hug when you're naked can have far greater implications that when dressed.

I ran into an old friend of my big sister. As a teenager I'd had a serious crush on her. She gave me a big hug. We were as naked as Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. In a roundabout way we were bumping uglies. Can I now say that I scored my teenage crush? And do I have to tell my girlfriend?

The third thing you must pay attention to while naked in company is quite personal and only really applicable to men folk. It relates to that part of a man that God engineered exclusively so the sexes could identify each other after dark. What if it got something into its head and decided to act up, so to speak.

Engineered

Fortunately, God had engineered it to spare us men any blushes. It was so damn cold out that the biggest fear was inversion rather than extraversion.

"Is this where all the big nobs hang out?" someone shouted. "Anyone bring any sunblock?" another wag called out.

Spencer made us wait quite some time out for the sun to emerge and burn through the morning clouds. Passenger ferries started coming into the bay.

"Don't come here. The recession's hitting us hard," said the guy who'd made the sunblock gag. Everyone's a comedian.

Naked as the day we were born, stood four abreast (sorry) along a kilometre stretch of pier, freezing cold we were an easy audience. Spencer asked us to lie down in the foetal position. The ground was freezing.

The shot was taken and we all wandered back along the pier to collect our clothes again. Finding your bag among the others was a bit like waking up from that dream where you're naked in public. Apparently in Cork, a few people had upgraded their clothing so it was a concern.

The second shot was only for the brave -- after all, it had started raining heavily. We stripped again and waded out into the water. It was freezing. Our skin was turning purple. We splashed around like kids. It made you think how much fun we Irish would have if we actually lived in a warm climate.

On the bus back into town, there was talk of fry-ups and early houses, but for most the only talk worth listening to was getting naked again, this time very much alone, in a very hot bath.

- Conor Creighton