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My Love Affair With A Hasselblad

This boxy guy reignited my passion for photography

My love of photography began with film cameras. I honed my craft around a certain type of film and within the limits of my basic camera.

When digital came along, I became quickly disillusioned and frustrated with this new technology. My images didn’t have the same feel — especially with ones I took of people. A pixel didn’t seem to render a person the same as a grain of film did.

People are curvy after all, not square.

I could see a difference between the images I shot with film and those I shot digitally. My friends told me I was crazy, but I could see it. The quality was different. The tonality was different.

And I didn’t like it.

So I continued to use my film camera until the shutter started sticking. Frustration again set in and I decided to put my camera aside. Digital photography was taking over the market and the technology wasn’t resonating with me.

My passion began to fizzle.

During this time I met a new friend who was a professional photographer. He’d embraced the digital world and was very successful at it. I lamented to him that I missed photography but was struggling to get back into it. I’d lost my passion.

I then said, “I wish I had an old medium format film camera to ignite my love again. Maybe getting back to my roots would spark that flame.”

His face lit up and he said, “My wife has been pestering me to sell my old Hasselblad. Wanna buy it?”

My eyes widened and I felt my heart leap.

“YES!” I exclaimed before I even knew the price. “I’ll take it!”

Thus began my love affair with a Hasselblad.

I brought the boxy camera home but had no idea how it operated. Thank goodness for Google. I watched a number of videos on how to load film, and how to use a handheld light meter and expose shots. When I felt I had the process down, I set off to take my first roll. My heart pounded with anticipation at what he and I would create together.

The office where I worked at that time had amazing natural lighting, so I decided it would be the ideal place to get acquainted and shoot our first roll together. I brought along a few props for image ideas that’d been cooking up in my head — a pitcher and flowers for a still life, my go-to boots at that time for a self-portrait, and one of my favorite possessions, my bike.

I set up shop and our romance began.

There were only 12 shots on the roll of film, so I had to be careful with each one. I took my time and double-checked my exposures. As I looked through his beautiful Zeiss lens at my subjects, my heart filled with delight at what I was seeing.

Everything I pointed his lens at looked lovely. The light. The clarity. The focus. All of it took my breath away. If we captured what my eyes were seeing, we’d create some amazing shots together.

Time flew by as I snapped image after image and before I knew it, I was at the end of the roll. I wound it up, sealed the end shut, and dropped it off at a local photography store.

Then I waited with excited anticipation. Since developing film isn’t the standard for shops anymore, it took almost 2 weeks to get the images back. When my order was finally ready, I opened up the envelope at the store counter. I couldn’t wait to see what my Hasselblad and I achieved together.

Since our first roll together, my Hasselblad and I have become closer. I know his quirks now—he has a small light leak on his left side. We’ve worked together to capture images of my sons and other sights that tickle my eyes. We’ve also collaborated on a project of photographing my friends.

We even teamed up to shoot a whole roll of self-portraits. He has a mechanism for a delayed shutter release. I set him up on a tripod, composed the shot as best I could, pushed the self-timer button, and let him snap the photos.

In recent years, we haven’t done as much together. I experienced a short phase of limited resources and spending money on film and developing wasn’t in my budget. But I still pulled him out every so often to feel his boxy build in my hands or to simply gaze at the world through his lovely lens.

I’m in a better place now. Life ushered in positive changes and my future looks bright. I’m now feeling the itch to recommit and spend some quality time with him.

Stay tuned.

kasey sparks, © 2023

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