Editorial Fashion Shoot Published in Marika Magazine

Happy to report that I’ve had an editorial fashion photoshoot published recently in Marika Magazine, and international fashion magazine. The theme of the shoot, and its title, is “Open Window.” The goal of the team, just three of us, was threefold:

1. To shoot with only natural light in an indoors setting;

2. To combine ballet and fashion, dance and wardrobe;

3. To test a new camera system, the Fujifilm GFX 100, with my (now replaced) other system, the Hasselblad X1D.

Happy to report that the shoot went great, we had loads of light pouring through the windows of our house in Greenwich, both cameras were amazing but especially the GFX 100, and best of all we had the final images accepted into Marika Magazine’s October Issue.

You can see the images from that shoot under Latest Work.

Goodbye Phantom Vibrations, Hello Birdsong

Perhaps the most profound change I’ve noticed since ditching my iPhone for a very minimalist (both design and function) “dumb” phone is disappearance of phantom vibrations.

Phantom vibrations are, of course, those muscle twitches you get in your upper thigh, where you typically carry your smartphone, or also, in my case, your wrist if you’ve ever worn an Apple Watch.

Now granted, the first few days of “detox” I actually experienced more phantom vibrations than normal. But by now, on day 6 of my dis-kon-nect, they are gone.

It’s a very strange feeling to have your left wrist tendons twitching in the same manner as if they were being stimulated by a small vibrating watch. But that was happening all the time. And this is a big problem.

Imagine reading, and our wrist twitches. Imagine looking out the window at dusk, when the light is perfectly golden and a stillness hovers over the city, and your muscles contract on your leg as if a little insect were crawling up your thigh.

Sure, the Punkt. MP01 has an optional vibration alert. And it works well. But I purposely turned it off as soon as I turned on the phone.

So how do I know somebody has called or texted me?

I hear a birdsong. More on that in my next post.

Why I Bought a Non-tethering Dumb Phone in 2020

A friend of mine recently asked me why I opted for the truly “dumb” 2G Punkt. MP01 versus its newer 4G brother, the MP02 (you can compare specs here). They are both intentionally minimalist phones, without internet capabilities in themselves, meant for calls and texts only.

There are a number of related reasons, with one dominant reasons making the decision easy (in my opinion):

1. Cost - I managed to pay 1/3 the cost for a mint condition MP01, compared to the full price cost of the MP02.

2. Reliability - A few reputable reviewers had complained about the reliability of the MP02, in that it needs a firmware update to address some issues, whereas the MP01 only had heaps of praise (although I’m sure Punkt. will have the MP02 sorted before too long, so don’t let that put you off the second generation). The battery standby for the MP02 is one week; the MP01 is 3 weeks. Such a significant decrease in necessary engagement with the device is quite appealing to me, coming from a history of charging my iPhone every single day.

3. Design - I wanted the original Jasper Morrison design, with the golf-ball type impressions on the back case, and the simple clean minimalist aesthetic. I love the design. No, I absolutely love the design.

4. Philosophy - Above all, I resonate with the philosophy underlying Punkt. and the MP01 is the first embodiment of that. Although the MP02 is a brilliant concept, namely, that you can tether your dumb phone to a laptop or iPad, I purposely avoided that route. As another reviewer noted, when a smoker wants to quit, they must physically remove their cigarettes from being accessible. To be frank, I don’t need to answer emails, iMessages, FB, WhatsApp as soon as they come in. Any perceived need to be tetherable at any location and at any time is just that, a perceived need.

The bottom line is this: what I truly need now, more than every, is space to think, to write, to read, to engage with physically present human beings (or hear their actual voice through a phone call if that’s not possible).

The MP01 enables me to do that reliably while removing any possibility of defaulting back to the brutally impersonal efficiency of social media.

Replacing FOMO with FOMO

I’ve realized one very simple fact about why I kept my smartphone for so long before shutting it down three days ago in favor of a dumb phone: misplaced FOMO.

The Fear Of Missing Out is real. But what am I afraid of missing out on?

The truth is, after ten years using a smartphone, with all its apps and notifications and instant access to everybody else’s life, I was missing out on, well, nothing.

Not nothing nothing, but nothing as in the virtual facade kind of nothing. The nothing life that isn’t your real life, but your IG life, your FB post life, your Snapchat life, even your LinkedIn life.

You know what kind of life that is?

A 2D life.

I’m leaving the virtual world, not completely, but as completely as I can given the demands of my job (requires social media presence) and family (most life across the ocean which requires WhatsApp, Skype, etc).

My FOMO on things virtual is being replaced by a FOMO of missing out on the following:

1. the twinkle in my daughter’s eyes as she shows me her latest drawing

2. the curious look my puppy gives when I look at him long enough in the eyes

3. the reflection of the sun hitting that corner of the table in the late afternoon creating a geometric pattern of light and shadow

4. Greg the mailman walking by and waving hello, and my return wave and smile

5. the misplaced toys sitting on the kitchen counter reminding me of my children

So I’m afraid of missing out on real life. The virtual life will forget me within a second of my departure.

I don’t miss it either, and I’m not afraid anymore of what I was never missing in the first place: nothing much.

Texting with T9...in 2020.

My new dumb phone is the Punkt. MP01, and it only performs two functions: calls and texts. But with physical buttons and no touch screen, I’m required to type text messages using T9 again. Do you remember T9? It’s that old, discarded version of texting that assigns 3-4 letters of the alphabet to each of the number keys on your telephone.

Well, I just used my Punkt to send my first text message using T9 since about 10 years ago. And…that wasn’t easy.

I used to think (as in, 2 days ago) that it was annoying to have to press a function key on my iPhone just to get to symbols such as a question mark or en dash. In fact, I hated typing on the iPhone at all.

So I’ve put myself in a worse situation. At least concerning texting.

Now I have to bring up a new menu, scroll through using either an up or down key, and after about 6 button presses end up at the question mark.

But I must remind myself of the following: I bought this phone in order to spend more time actually calling people, and to keep my typing of letters (text, email, etc) to devices better suited (read: intended) for that purpose.

I didn’t buy the Punkt to text, but rather to reverse my habit of texting 99% of the time and rarely ever hearing some of my closest friends’ voices.

In fact, in a wicked twist of irony, I’ve been emailing and FB messaging friends of mine today asking for their mobile numbers. I actually didn’t know them previously. Why would I, when FB and email sufficed?

So, excuse me while I end this blog post to give my friend a call, and ask her to meet me a half hour later than originally planned (using FB messenger).

Dis-kon-nect-ing: The Introduction

I’ve realized that the more I am connected to the virtual world, the less connected I have become to the three dimensional world immediately around me.

The reality of my dis-konnected-ness hit home a few days ago when my 2-year old said, as only a 2-year old can, “Daddy, put down your phone” (that’s my translation of her mishmashed syntax, but it was pretty close to that).

The sad thing is that I looked up from my phone, into her eyes, and said, “Stop that.” She had been tapping my arm at the time. And even as I looked at her, my mind was still trying to maintain concentration on the FB message I was composing before her interruption.

Interruption. Isn’t that ironic? My daughter, who is many years from independence without the need for adult supervision, including feeding and dressing and hygiene, my daughter has become an interruption to my virtual life.

Of course, I can protest all day that my work requires virtual connection, that my social life requires perpetual social media accessibility. I have many times justified my addiction (let’s call it what it is) by appealing to situations of urgency:

1. My wife is driving the car and it breaks down, she needs to reach me ASAP using Facebook, WhatsApp, text, and maybe even calling me.

2. I need directions to get to the pickup location for an item I just purchased on ebay.

3. When travelling abroad, I need Uber to get around.

4. When flying, I need access to ticket on my phone, the emails with the flight itinerary, and the airline’s app for flight updates.

5. How will I pay for things if I forget my wallet at home?

As compelling as the above reasons are (and there are many more, I’ve used them all over the last 7 years or so to hold on to my smartphone), there is one reason I am switching off my smartphone and replacing it with a dumb phone.

I’ll explain in the next post.

A brief study in scale, at Tate Modern

This image, shot today at Tate Modern in medium format present a brief study in scale.

There are two elements at play here.

First is the large brick factory stack of the Tate (I am standing atop the other stack), which, due to its proximity, dwarfs the much taller office buildings on the horizon.

The second is the clouds (always look up!). They initially appear to be beneath the same factory stack, but as you let your eye drift to the horizon, the magnitude of these dark-bellied, water-logged floating monsters thousands of feet in the air convey a threatening and awesome power that relegates the stack, and every other building in London, to a lesser status.

Indeed, the reason for the large shadow cast upon the foregrounded buildings and river is due to a massive sister cloud formation directly overhead.

This combination of clouds, both seen and unseen (except through shadow), with physical structures creates a tension in the image that is resolves only by returning to the stack as the visual anchor of this composition.

And that's a brief lesson on scale.

On Choosing Monochrome

One reason I appreciate monochrome (black and white) images is for their resonance with written text. When I write, my page is blank white; black text stands in sharp contrast. Text is only visible due to this extreme contrast.

But also, text is only readable because of its form and structure, and the relationships between individual symbols.

This phenomenon is the same in monochrome images. Form and structure supersede color; relationships between elements of the composition, between subject and objects, between foreground and background, are readable as dichotomy.

This is not to dismiss color images as a less worthy medium of communication, as a subordinate form of art. Not at all. Some compositions absolutely demand color to be “readable.”

But in my own personal work, monochrome enables me, and my subjects, to communicate a message that accentuates form, manifests dichotomy, and solicits emotion.

New Commission: Munich's Frauenkirche

A new commission opportunity has come up with a buyer in Munich.

The idea is to capture the famous Frauenkirche in Munich with the Alps in the background.

I’ve seen a slew of images fitting this description already in my research, so the challenge, as usual, is to capture an iconic image of the building that stands apart from every other in terms of composition, lighting, weather, etc (the thumbnail image for this post is not mine, but it is typical of the vast majority of images available of this iconic structure).

I’ll keep you all posted on the discussions, since there are some logistic issues to work through.

When the final image is ready, I’ll likely be offering it as a Color Prints in a limited edition of 10 total prints.

Prints Delivered to USA buyer

I’ve just delivered a few prints of The Copper Roof to the USA. This is a one-of-a-kind shot of the unique roof of The Rock Church in Helsinki.

The reward for me will be seeing the images up on the wall, when the recipients get around to sending me a pic.

The Copper Roof is part of an extremely limited edition; I will only print a few more of these, so contact me soon to discuss your size requirements and delivery information at info@tavisbohlinger.com.

New Commission: 5 Iconic Sites in London

I was just contacted last week about capturing five iconic locations in London for a private buyer. As I am currently residing in the city, this will be a good chance to get out and about the city.

My goal is to capture these five locations according to my personal approach (how could I do otherwise?).

That means working hard to not replicate existing compositions, finding new frames in which to capture the (or an) essence of a building or location, and ensuring that the final image alludes in some way to the larger structure or site.

I’m especially excited about this project for one very big reason: I’ll be using my new Hasselblad camera. That means this will be my first series done in medium format (previous series were mostly done on Full Frame, with a few earlier images on micro four thirds).

Shooting on a 51-mp Medium Format sensor means that these images will benefit from superb resolution and better colour rendition than is possible with a Full Frame sensor.

Although I’m still working out the details with the buyer, at some point later this year I intend to offer these images for sale, in a limited edition run as usual (10-20 prints total).

Stay tuned!

*Note: the thumbnail image is of The Shard, London, and is not part of this series. To purchase a print of this image, please contact me directly: info@tavisbohlinger.com.