Packing up the Hasselblad & Gettin' Nostalgic

I was packing up my beloved Hasselblad today in order to ship off to the repair center. It suffered a tragic fall last summer (I’m not blaming anyone….) and I’m only now getting it out the door. Shame, shame on me.

After packing it up, I continued my other task, which has been re-editing my portfolio books. I was looking through the images that I made in Paris last April and was struck by the difference in tone and feel between the images shot digitally and those that were made analog (-ly?) on the Hasselblad. It almost like two photographers were shooting the same trip. I’m not getting too deep into the (pointless?) debate between film and digital. As a commercial photographer who wants to make money shooting pictures and as a lazy person who hates spending a lot of time scanning (and removing dust from) film, I love digital. But as a photographic artist, I understand that I am wed to a camera (a mechanical thing) to create what I create. And each of these mechanical things, whether digital or analog has a different personality, which make me see, feel and create differently. I’m sure sketch artists have their personal favorite pencils or pens. (Do they have long debates about electronic stylus drawing vs. old-school pencil drawings?)

All I’m only saying that I miss shooting with that 501CM as much as I used to shoot with it. And besides, it’s an excuse to post more images to my blog:

Paris – Hasselblad – Images by Ryan Donnell

Here’s the whole gallery, including the digital images.