Tuesday, March 10, 2009

My beloved Hasselblad!

I don't have any pictures of my Hasselblad 500CM but here's a photo taken with it, taken circa 1987.
For those who don't know, a Hasselblad is the Rolls Royce of the medium format camera and it's expensive.


How I came to own one is not the story here.

When I started to travel, I brought it along with me. In the late 80s, I was living in London, England, in a youth hostel. I kept it locked in the hotel's safe for security.
One early morning, I was awaken by a frantic friend, who asked me if I had anything in the safe. "Yes, everything." " Why?"
"Everything was stolen!"
So I got up quite fast and was greated by the police on the scene of the crime. As I was describing everything I had in my bag (apart from my camera, I had my passport and all the money I had left.) , the same friend told me to come have a look because there was a couple of bags left.
So, I had a look and about the only bag that was left was my old and scruffy looking bag....with everything in it!
The morale of this story is, never NEVER put your valuables, (camera or otherwise) in a camera bag or an expensive-looking bag! The thieves had left my bag alone and I had the most expensive camera in the lot!
After that episode, I was too scared to travel with my Hasselblad anymore (with no insurance- too expensive!) , so upon a visit home, I left it there. Later sold it for more travel dineros.
My present camera (my trusty Nikon FM2-a totally manual 35 mm) is in a padded lunch bag.
To see more of my photos, please visit my Flickr stream. To buy a photo, please contact me.

4 comments:

Peter Bryenton said...

I've just added a link to your blog from mine.
Yes, Blogs are much easier and cheaper to manage than websites. If only we'd had them 10 years ago!

Eleni said...

Thanks 4 the link Peter!

kay said...

i was so relieved reading it came to a good end!
when i spent two months in brazil where street crime is big, i always bought a plastic bag from a local store and put the cam in there...nobody noticed... :)

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