Journal
Fairytale of New York - by Enzo Iriarte
I suppose that is the thing about New York. It is always a little more than you had hoped for. Each day there, is so definitely a new day. "Now we'll start over," it seems to say every morning, "and come on, let's hurry like anything." London is satisfied, Paris is resigned, but New York is always hopeful. Always it believes that something good is about to come off, and it must hurry to meet it. There is excitement ever running its streets. Each day, as you go out, you feel the little nervous quiver that is yours when you sit in the theatre just before the curtain rises. Other places may give you a sweet and soothing sense of level; but in New York there is always the feeling of "Something's going to happen." It isn't peace. But, you know, you do get used to peace, and so quickly. And you never get used to New York. Photos by Enzo Iriarte. Follow his visual journey on Instagram here. Words from "My Home Town", an essay from 1928 by American poet Dorothy Parker. ~ Shop with Tens this holiday season. Free gift wrapping and worldwide delivery in time for Christmas (order before 12pm 15th December) - visit store.
The Search - by Freddie Hare
How many times trying does it take to find what you're looking for? An adventure opportunity arose when my girlfriend invited me to join her on holiday with the family. As a coast kid, I always loved to pursue something with a little water, and a little thrill - so Portugal was a great place to let loose. Straight off the plane we managed to grab a taxi and cram in two 9ft longboards and 5 shortboards which was an over-dramatic start for our journey to the south. After at least 2 hours of this hectic, hot and stuffy car journey full of smells (which I can’t say from who and where but it wasn’t pleasant) we finally made it to the villa (which was PIMPING!) Not messing around, Lucie (my girlfriend) & I took full advantage of the van and drove off to explore the coastline. It was Christmas come early, just pure waveporn. We were gifted with a lovely 3-4ft wave with not a soul in the water.... WINNING! After a week of constant surfing and terrible tan lines, I thought we should give the shoulders a rest and find some of Portugal’s hidden gems. There's only a certain amount of minutes I can sit still for... I dragged Lucie and the others on a hunt for a possible cliff jump I had been shown by a friend of mine on Instagram. It took us three attempts to find this cliff, I was orienteering from google maps which was a little unconvincing to the others as we were scrambling over rocks and bushes in the blistering midday heat. Finally on our third attempt to find this place, we got there. We began the descent down and placed our valuables in a safe area. You know when you show someone an image and it just doesn’t do the place justice? Well that was very true in our case, this jump was fucking HUGE! I made my way down to an obvious ledge to scout where we could jump in and exit safely. There was nothing visible and it was a huge 50ft+ drop into a dark cave at high tide. Lucie looked at me as if I was mad, so we called it off and headed back to our safe cosy villa to indulge ourselves with wine and pasta for the night. It was too big and sketchy, we needed at least a warm up jump before attempting such a sickening drop. A couple days on from our failed attempts, we decided to take a boat tour around the coastline of southern Portugal (Sagres). What happened next was bloody typical; the captain was telling us about all these amazing places that we could jump from and the first jump just so happened to be the one we had been looking for! How fucking annoying is that? The end of the tour we headed round the bay to find the big ass jump we had failed the previous week. I explained to the captain how we had attempted to jump this and he laughed and said “You're just jumping to your death, there’s no way out - once you're in, you're in”. How very happy we all were that we didn’t have the bollocks to go through with this idiotic jump, as this would have been a very different story. We opted for a smaller, safer one instead. See more on Freddie's Instagram here.
Best of the Month - Vol. 9
As we delve deeper into this year's warm autumn colours, we're back with a roundup of our favourite stories, images and music from the past month. Enjoy! Best of the Web Lego celebrated the women of NASA last month with new minifiguress, featuring Nancy Grace Roman, Margaret Hamilton, Sally Ride, and Mae Jemison. Donate Your Tab uses your computer's CPU via browser tabs to mine cryptocurrency. This is then all donated to charity! You can simply flick the switch and run this in the background to help out various causes. Find out more here. Tens team member Richard Branson has built an 80-foot steel octopus to sink one of the remaining boats involved in the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbour — The Kodiak Queen. The historical navy ship, which was sunk off the coast of Virgin Gorda, is now an underwater art installation and marine life habitat. The Yashica Y35 is a new ‘digiFilm’ camera that shoots digital photos with the help of pretend rolls of film. Styled after Yashica’s original Electro 35, which had the world’s first electronic-controlled shutter, the Y35 features a 1/3.2-inch CMOS sensor that shoots 14-megapixel photos and a 35mm f/2.8 glass lens. The camera is designed to “recapture the joy and meaning of analogue-photography” while “eliminating the time and expense required for film development.” London-based photographer Rich McCor, or paperboyo travels across the globe giving creative updates to buildings, bridges, and signs through the use of simple paper cutouts. By placing a black design in the foreground of his image, London’s Tower Bridge is instantly transformed into a looping roller coaster. See more on his Instagram. Tens Soundtrack Here are some of our office favourites, both new and old. Who else should we be checking out? Visit our profile on Spotify to check out our previous months' soundtracks. Who to Follow Here are some of our favourite accounts to follow on Instagram. If you know anybody that we should be following, let us know! This month we've got @arnaudmontagard, @laurentkronental, @mr_bingstagram, @robertgoetzfried & @mariano_pascual. Best of #FilterYourWorld At Tens we put our community first, no matter what it is that we're up to. Here's where we share some of our favourite customer photos with Tens from the last month. We love seeing your tags with Tens, so be sure to tag us + #FilterYourWorld for your chance to be featured! Photos submitted (in order) by @sibylle87, @ktlphotog, @sir_hare, @michelezandanel & @anto.agos. ~ What things have you discovered this month? Are we missing anything? Message us on Facebook with suggestions!
Kegelbahns - The Aesthetics of 9-Pin Bowling
“I like to show places in ways people don’t usually see them, Kegeln was a big deal when I was a child. These days, the bowling alleys are becoming rare and traditional ones are about to die.” Robert Goetzfried is an professional photographer and graphic designer currently based in Munich. For his project “Bowling Alleys”, Robert has traveled all over Germany to capture the country’s vibrant bowling alleys or 'Kegelbahns'. The sport was huge in '80s Germany, and the halls served as extremely popular hangouts. Most of these alleys are found underneath restaurants, beer taverns and town halls, so groups would gather to laugh, drink and bowl (think Big Lebowski). Goetzfried commented on the juxtaposition of wild weekends against the clean lines of the walls meeting the lanes. Very #AccidentalWesAnderson. Mesmerised by the shapes of the Kegelbahns, Robert has captured everything from single-alley spots under Italian restaurants, to Europe's largest American bowling center at 52 lanes. View the gallery below, and check out more of Robert's work via Instagram.
La Fabrica - 45 Years in the Making
La Fabrica (The Factory) is a 5,000 square feet cement factory located near Barcelona, Spain which serves as the unique backdrop to local architect Ricardo Bofill‘s studio and home. Bofill stumbled upon the cement factory in 1973. It was an enormous compound of silos and buildings that covered nearly two and a half miles of underground tunnels. He decided to purchase La Fabrica, and over the past 45 years his team have been renovating the structure. The dream was to create a living work space that would unite the Surrealist, Abstract, and Brutalist elements found in its original industrial form. Original construction to transform the sprawling series of buildings took a little over a year and a half. After the dust cleared from the jack hammers and dynamite, Catalan craftsmen worked to add gardens and purpose back into the abandoned compound. Today the factory holds a cathedral, model workshop, archive rooms, residence, and studio, a workspace for Bofill’s firm spread over four floors in the factory’s silos and connected by a spiral staircase. Despite nearly forty-five years in the making, the entire project is constantly evolving and is one that Bofill never sees as being fully completed. With continuous tweaks, Bofill has created a perfectly programmed existence, a ritualised lifestyle that goes against his previously nomadic early life as explained in the above video from Nowness. “I have the impression of living in a precinct, in a closed universe which protects me from the outside and everyday life. The Cement Factory is a place of work par excellence. Life goes on here in a continuous sequence, with very little difference between work and leisure.” You can view more details of the project on Bofill's website here.
Best of the Month - Vol. 8
We're back to help you hold on to that summer warmth by sharing what we've been sharing together at HQ. Here are our favourite things, accounts, tracks and community photos from the past month - enjoy! Best of the Web When it comes to travelling, there are so many things out there to make it easier and more enjoyable: products to buy, apps to download, services to use, travel hacks and tips to remember. The problem is finding these today is a chore, and discerning which ones are actually worth your time takes even longer. Wanderprep sifts through it all and distills it down for you, but in a way that respects your time and attention. This visualisation of a Joshua Tree residence is created from several shipping containers. Each container is orientated to maximise views across the landscape or to use the topography to provide privacy, depending on their individual use. Following the release of iOS11's ARKit for iPhones - IKEA released their 'Place' app which allows you to accurately visualise their furniture right there in your room using the phone's camera. It's not quite available outside of US & Canada yet but keep your eyes peeled. This guy flew his drone onto, inside, and UNDER a MOVING TRAIN! Some good news for once. Snow Leopards are now no longer listed as endangered 🙌🏼 80s.nyc is basically a Google Street View of New York City from the 80s. Over 800,000 images are included, giving voyeurs a window into the world of each neighborhood. By clicking on selected areas of the city, one can look into the past, and learn a few things about the city that never sleeps. Tens Soundtrack Here are some of our office favourites, both new and old. Who else should we be checking out? Visit our profile on Spotify to check out our previous months' soundtracks. Who to Follow Here are some of our favourite accounts to follow on Instagram. If you know anybody that we should be following, let us know! This month we've got @azumamakoto, @hearwhatyousee (an aural / visual project by Ta-Ku), @jamesxneilson (music illustrator), @abduzeedo & @kylopomsky. Best of You Here we would normally feature a selection of our favourite tagged photos with Tens from you, the community. This month has been just as incredible, if not even better as you caught the last of those summer rays. This month though, we wanted to share this great video that was sent into us from Nick Afchain. Watch 'America: A Moving Postcard' featuring DJ Big Al & his Tortoiseshell Classics. What things have you discovered this month? Are we missing anything? Message us on Facebook with suggestions!
49 Hours in San Francisco
“Hey do you fancy going to SF next month? My dad has a trip flying out there and we can tag along…” “Yeah, sure how long for?” “Erm… its only 2 nights” “F**k it lets do it” Having a friend whose father is an airline captain has its definite perks. Arriving late in San Fran suitably tipsy from 11 hours of continuous champagne however was probably not the best way to start out our trip and set the tone for what turned out to be a manic couple of days. With such a short amount of time in city we felt that we had to make the most of the time available to us. An early jetlagged start down to grab tickets for the day trip to Alcatraz Island after approx. 3 hours sleep + the hangover from 8 (or was it 10?) beers from the night before meant that we were probably the loudest and jovial members of the queue. Making friends with some Swedish travellers we toured the prison island. It's remarkable the views these inmates had over the Bay Area and the audio tour proved to be super immersive. We’d been recommended that the best way to see the Golden Gate bridge was on tandem bike. It definitely proved to be the most comical and unpractical way to squeeze through the crowds of tourists on the way across. The sheer size and colour of the bridge is as impressive as it looks in photos and I hope I’ve been successful in trying to capture it in interesting ways. After a late lunch and some Irish Coffee, we met up with our friend Dan who we first partied with whilst travelling in Vietnam last year. He now works for Google and was happy to show us the city. Bouncing from bar to bar in China Town (with the distinctive memory of throwing up after a shot of strange whisky) we ended up partying in a club near Golden Gate Park 'til the early hours. Dan had work in the morning and offered us a bleary eyed tour of the Google SF offices. Hungover AF we met up early to see whether they were as awesome as they’re hyped to be. Turns out they are. The entire front of the building has stunning views of the Oakland Bridge and inside it is like no other office, with nap pods, cocktail bars and one room entirely filled with 3D printers. Wandering the city, the divide between the rich and poor is evident, with SF social benefits policy requiring no fixed address to claim, meaning that the homeless roam even the most affluent streets. It’s a strange comparison to draw with the super rich tech elite who work mostly in the area and endemic of the divide we see in the US today. With a quick tram ride and trip up to the top of the iconic 8 hair-pin turned Lombard Street complete, it was time to catch our flight back to London. Total time in SF – 49 hours. Thankfully the flight home was quiet and the captain was able to upgrade us both to First Class for the journey. Finally, time for some rest! Iain is a serving British Army helicopter pilot with a passion for photography. Check his work at @imagesbyiain.
Iceland: A Road Trip on the Tundra
"I really don't know how I feel after the experience. We circled the island with broken hearts and open minds. Young souls constantly waiting for the sunrise. That's who we are. That's how we do." Follow Barcelona-based photographer Enzo Iriarte on a goosebump-inducing summer's trip through the moody tundra of Iceland. The famous Ring Road encircles the entire country covering over 800 miles on Route 1. While you could technically drive the whole thing in less than 24 hours, Enzo & friends took 10 days, stopping where they could along the way. Food was expensive, but the memories were priceless. Swipe through the photos below and see more of Enzo's work here. Models: Katia Ramos & Zakari Kunakey
Best of the Month - Vol. 7
We don't want to alarm you, but September is here. We may need a moment to sit down and let that sink in, and what better thing to explore whilst doing so than Best of the Month? Here are our favourite things, accounts, tracks and community photos from the past month - enjoy! Best of the Web This is what one of those viral Facebook cooking videos would look like if it was directed by Wes Anderson. This photographer fabricated a purely DIY camera flash setup using just a Big Mac box, a flashlight and a drinks straw. The results (shot on iPhone) are STUNNING. Learn more about the project here. Sicilian artist Marco Mangione, known as Gue, has transformed Darsena Popup’s Ravenna skatepark into a dynamic, coluor composition. Darsena Popup, a sports complex at the edge of the river, is close to Ravenna’s historical center. In an effort to refurbish the urban area, the installation creates a clever synthesis between the artwork and its environment. Camera brand Lomography have just announced the world's first fully analogue instant camera for Instax square film. They're launching via Kickstarter - you can learn more & back the project here. Gudak Cam is an iPhone app that mimics the 'Kodak Moments' of disposable cameras. The rolls are limited to 24 shots which you can only run through every 12 hours. Once the roll is complete, you need to wait 3 days for the photos to process, adding 'accidental' and random scratches and light-leaks before you can view them. Download it here. Lonely Planet's 'Trips' app is a beautiful, simple and intuitive way to share travel experiences. Upload photos and videos to your timeline, then share your trip with your friends, family and fellow travellers. Tens Soundtrack Here are some of our office favourites, both new and old. Who else should we be checking out? Visit our profile on Spotify to check out our previous months' soundtracks. Who to Follow Here are some of our favourite accounts to follow on Instagram. If you know anybody that we should be following, let us know! This month we've got @chrislabrooy, @leriadyasmine, @ronanpark, @thiswildidea & @moviemountain. Best of #FilterYourWorld At Tens we put our community first, no matter what it is that we're up to. Here's where we share some of our favourite customer photos with Tens from the last month. We love seeing your tags with Tens, so be sure to tag us + #FilterYourWorld for your chance to be featured! Photos submitted (in order) by @niklasmulzer, @neongoldrecords, @urbantraveller, @wethefoodsnobs, @hannahrosemay_ & @calcowie.~What things have you discovered this month? Are we missing anything? Message us on Facebook with suggestions!
