I got my Hasselblad 500 c/m as an impromptu anniversary gift on our trip to Portland back in 2016. Blue Moon Camera happened to have just gotten one in and I was so excited to bring it home with me.
It took me a while to actually work up the courage to use it, though. It seemed a lot more complex than the Canon AE-1 I had been using- and not even using for all that long, really. I was sure that I was going to either break it or discover that using such a fine machine was reserved for those who had been in the darkroom for 40 years. I don’t think I actually shot a full roll of film on it for two years before finally reaching for one of twenty or so rolls of Lomography Lady Grey that had begun taking over my shelves. I started that one roll and then let the camera continue to collect dust.
A year later, the time had come to leave Fairbanks. I decided that it was sink or swim now. I had the thing, I needed to learn it. Maybe I was feeling more grown up. I don’t know. Regardless of reasons, I was off for my last walk in Denali National Park with my friend, fellow photographer and travel buddy, Sarah, Hasselblad in tow.
I would’ve lived there if I could.
The walk was a chance to apply a lot of what I learned over the last few years. No light meter in the camera meant that I had to work out my own exposure (though it was very sunny and didn’t really change all that much). I had gone through the roll by the time we were halfway through, so I had to reload the beastie in the shadow of a big rock. I was also looking through ground glass with the image flipped and upside down… which was never a strong suit. It was a bit stressful, but in the end it was such a worthwhile endeavor. It’s a bit bulky to be an everyday camera (yet) but it is certainly one that I bring out more often now.
Back in the days when passing a lot of other people on the trail was no big thing.
I got the roll of Kodak Portra used for these photos when I purchased the camera. It was about three years old when I shot it and it was never stored in the fridge. In fact, it stayed in the camera through my drive down to Anchorage a month later- with two frames left unexposed- and through two flights to New Jersey four months after that. This roll saw almost half a decade of my life go by before it got developed. All things considered, it held up pretty well! If you look at the sky in some of the photos you can see watermarks of “Kodak” and some numbers but, otherwise, no complaints here!
Seeing this roll developed felt like finishing the last lingering chapter of a book long open. It’s not a novel idea that learning something new takes practice and mistakes but I think some of us sneakily convince ourselves to play it safe for too long. I tell my kids emphatically that making mistakes is important for learning, you can’t do great things without them. Mistakes allow us to find our voice, to rehearse what we want to put out there. Mistakes should be a trusted friend. I’m glad that even though it took me years to really take this to heart, I am able to fully embrace it now without the fear of embarrassment or inadequacy.
More Hasselblad images to come as I continue to learn my way around this beauty!
Be sure to check out Sarah’s stellar photos of her adventures at her website, Sarah Manriquez Photography, too!