Meanwhile
For a little over two decades my main camera was a 500 series Hasselblad, and I used it for virtually every kind of assignment. A chunky metal box with a few slots and buttons on its sides, the camera wasn't built to feel great in the hands, but somehow, over time, it became completely intuitive to me. I exposed thousands of rolls of 120mm film and Polaroid after Polaroid with the thing, and when it became harder and harder to find good film processing in Chicago I warily made the transition to digital, picking up an early Nikon D1X to work with the film lenses I already owned. Eventually, Hasselblad offered a digital back - the CFV - and I optimistically sprang for the first generation, hoping to get back to a workflow I really enjoyed. And, for a short while, it succeeded. But too soon, it became clear that timely tech advancement wasn't a Hasselblad priority and so that gear all went back in the case. Canon, Nikon, and eventually Sony had won that battle. In 2018 I brought the camera out for a quick visit, noticed aberrations on the clear plate that both protects and blocks infrared light from the sensor, and sent it off to Hasselblad for evaluation. A painful $900 later and all was well, until two years later when it wasn't. Again. Turns out the first gen backs had the reputation for developing a creeping ick that eventually destroyed many of those expensive infrared pass filters. So, annoyed, I pried the thing away from the sensor and - at least temporarily - converted the camera to accept only the infrared spectrum by covering the lens with an 87C filter. Now no visible light reaches the sensor, making viewfinders completely useless. Focus has to be estimated (and further adjusted for the infrared spectrum) and what's in front of the camera has to be evaluated for the sometimes strange shift in priorities. Taking pictures with the thing still feels like I'm working with an old friend, albeit a slightly tipsy one who can make some pretty random decisions. Yes, the display on the back does give some vague feedback, but it's really not until I pull the files from the card and look at them on a computer monitor that I know if my assumptions have taken the pictures where I'd wanted them to go. Since winter of 2021 I've been working with this awkward process, bringing the Hasselblad and usually a 60mm CF lens along on jobs, hoping for an opportunity to shoot with it at some point before or after work. I hope that you enjoy them - and this edit - as much as I have in making them.