This photograph has a story. It was taken with a Hasselblad 500 C/M that I borrowed from work. Hasselblad cameras are premium, handmade cameras that, at the time, cost 8-10x more than my personal Nikon. Shooting with the medium format Hasselblad is totally different that shooting 35mm. It is a big camera with a waist-level viewfinder. It is totally manual and mechanical, meaning that light metering happens with a separate meter. Cameras like these slow down the process and, as many photographers argue, lead to more craft and creativity being applied to each image. The unsurpassed quality of Hassleblad lenses and negatives that are just over 4x bigger than 35mm add even more potential quality to the photography one can produce.

The photograph itself was a lucky find as I walked home from work. I liked to leave the camera store via the back ally and found this Cadillac Eldorado parked a few steps from the store. I couldn’t back up far enough to include the whole car in the narrow ally, so I focused the Hasselblad’s 80mm lens on the back half of the car. I love this photograph. The bright yellow, the shape of the car, and the contrast with the bricks just works.