Tiffany and her quest for a Hasselblad!

I have been yearning for a medium format camera for quite some time now.  I used to shoot 4×5 before I started shooting digital, but let me tell you, that 4×5 camera is not the easiest thing to lug around!  Now after shooting digital for several years, I’ve been missing film, and I’ve always wanted a Hasselblad, but I was discouraged by the price tag.  So, as a regular attendee of Estate Sales, I began searching.  I first came across a really nice Yaschica medium format for a really great price, but my husband and perhaps something else kept me from getting it.  For months afterwards I was kicking myself for not getting it!  This is so stupid, why, as humans do we do this!  Anyway, I decided to just “Put It Out There” that I would really like a Hasselblad.  Now, I know this sounds crazy, but this is really what happened.  After “putting it out there” for a while with no results, I went to bed one night and just thought on it really hard, that I would really love a Hasselblad camera!  The next morning I went to check the EstateSales.net site as I often do just to look and see what was happening for the weekend.  To my surprise I came across a sale from someone that had been a camera connoisseur!  They literally had hundreds of cameras in every shape and size that you could imagine!  And down at the bottom of the page they had a photo of a Hasselblad!  This was just too weird, I thought!  So the next morning I got up really early to go wait in line at the sale and of course I got all antsy and shaky and I had a hard time breathing, etc.  I find this to be really annoying!  So, I got to the sale site, where the directions on the website told me to go, and there was no one there.  Hmmmm….. this seemed a little odd.  I saw another man parked in his car waiting and I drove up behind him.  He got out of his car and we talked about how it was really weird that nobody else was there.  He got out his Smartphone or something similar and looked up the address again(I am not that advanced, obviously, I’m buying a camera from the 1950’s).  Somehow, we had both gone to a similar address but in the wrong city!  All  I could think was “Oh my God!  Oh my God!  I blew it!”  So, I followed the man in his car, 30 minutes back to where I had started, the sale was actually about 10 minutes from my house.  Ugh!  We got out at the correct house where there is already a line of people, mostly older men that have that look like they know a lot about camera’s, (I’m just kind of making this up, I don’t know what that look, looks like, but you know what I mean).  And they are giving out numbers at the door, me and the man that I followed  to the sale got numbers 22 and 23 I think.  We both look at each other and then at the men that “look like they know cameras” and we sigh and shake our heads.  They are totally going to take “My” camera!  I”m kicking myself again!  So, I chat with the man while we wait, and we are both talking about how stupid we are to not double check the address!  Then they send in the first 13 people or so and I am probably blabbering on and quivering because by now I’ve had a bunch of coffee and nothing to eat and my blood sugar is dropping.  Finally it comes time for me and the man (I never found out his name) to enter the house.  “Where are the camera’s” I sputter, trying not to sound too anxious.  The woman points to the garage through the back hallway.  Both me and the man head directly back to a garage filled with cameras!  Wow!  I might have stopped to stare, but only for a second.  I approached the man in charge of the cameras, “Is the Hassleblad still here?”  I ask quietly, I might have whispered, I don’t know why, I thought there was going to be a mad rush of people that I might have to wrestle and knock out or something!  All I’m thinking is that it is already gone, and I’m shaking.  Then, he turns around and takes the Hasselblad off of the shelf and hands it to me.  At first, I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to take it, touch it, I might break it, good lord get it together!  So I hold it close to my body and just look at it.  Then I start to turn it around and push buttons like I know what I’m doing but I don’t want to set it down for fear of someone else grabbing it away from me.  So, I just stand and look at it some more, probably for about 10 minutes, I’m sure the man in charge was leery of me.  The other man that I came to the sale with also got what he was looking for, I think it was a tele-photo lens for his own Hasselblad and he also informed me that the price that they were asking for “My” camera was a steal.  I had to get it, I mean, I would be stupid if I didn’t.  However, their credit card machine is broken and here I go into another panic!  But, to make an even longer story shorter I will not bore you with any more details.  I got the camera and she is in mint condition and I love the sound of her shutter (it really makes me sound important) and once I figured out how to role the film correctly, I got some images back!  Now, I just need to dust this baby out so I don’t have to spend 75 minutes cloning dust marks out of my images!  Here she is!  My new, well technically she’s got a body from 1957 and a back from 1961, but she’s new to me and I’m so excited to use her more and incorporate film back into my life!  Don’t you just hear little kissing noises when you look at her… or is that just me?

My first images with her.  I love the colors!