Munich’s Urban Jungle Blogger

Last month I had the pleasure of travelling to Munich for a whirlwind weekend shoot at the home of blogger Igor Josif. Igor writes about interiors, plants, and travel on his cheerful and inspiring Happy Interior Blog and it was a real treat to see him again in his hometown, albeit very briefly.

Back in February of this year, Igor wrote a lovely review of my second book Bohemian Modern, and later we met by chance at a West Elm event in London (where I found myself in a workshop, painting cacti and sticking googly eyes on them. Don’t ask). So it was a pleasant susprise when one of my clients asked me to style a shoot for them in Igor’s gorgeous apartment in Bavaria’s capital city, Munich. You’ll have to wait until next Spring to see the photos, and I can’t show you too much here, but suffice it to say, Igor has done the impossible by taking a very, very petite apartment (32 square meters) and making it both functional and really beautiful.
Another of Igor’s projects is Urban Jungle Bloggers, a blog he co-founded with friend Judith de Graaff, that focuses exclusively on living with plants. As you would expect, his apartment was overflowing with all kinds of houseplants and succulents in an eclectic collection of pots, each one unique. Ever since I made Bohemian Modern, I keep coming across homes that would have been perfect to include – this is one of them! Igor’s interiors style is modern, bohemian, and very thoughtful in terms of colour and pattern balance. Unlike me, Igor has discipline when it comes to colour, sticking mainly with indigo, mustard, and earth tones, unlike me who cannot seem to decide between pink, green, red, blue, black, white……

A team of seven, plus Igor and all of his houseplants, managed to squeeze in and get all the shots done. From left to right: Photographer’s assistant, photographer, art director, Igor, writer, and in the front, my lovely assistant who looks ready to run a race. Me behind the camera of course.As is often the case with these overseas shoots, I usually get to see inside a hire car, hotel, location, and airport. This time I managed a very quick wander in the old town one evening, and discovered the buildings overflowing with the most beautiful and enormous window boxes.

And this, my dears, is how we travel. Because I learned to drive in America when I moved there at seventeen, I always end up as designated driver when we’re in continental Europe since I’m comfortable driving on the ‘wrong’ side of the road, unlike a lot of Brits. I asked for an automatic because I was being lazy and didn’t feel like messing around with the gears, and all they had was this 8-seater Mercedes beast. That’s how we roll people. And remember – any time you see a perfectly styled photo, just out of frame is a tired looking stylist, probably standing on tip toes, keeping it all together with hot glue, very good balance, and a lot of fingers crossed, just like below.
All photos taken on my poor old, overworked iPhone, some borrowed from my instagram account, which you should follow for more frequent behind the scenes updates 🙂