Personal thoughts for today by Joe Farace
“Things ain’t what they used to be and probably never was.”—Will Rogers
On August 24, we honor the seventh state to join the Union with National Maryland Day. Maryland’s coastal location brings with it a deeply rooted maritime tradition that includes an ocean battle that occurred during the War of 1812 that featured the defense of Baltimore City—my home town— at Fort McHenry. Francis Scott Key, an American lawyer and poet, who witnessed this battle was so inspired by what he saw that he wrote the words of what would would later became our National Anthem.
Much later in the city’s history, Johns Hopkins became a successful businessman and philanthropist. Hopkins’ forward-thinking provided for the development of Johns Hopkins University that I attended, Johns Hopkins Hospital and the well known Johns Hopkins School of Medicine among many others institutions.
About The Photograph
I made this photograph of my former home in Baltimore that was located in the 200-year old community of Dickeyville—I always think of it as Brigadoon—on January 1, 1976. Shortly before that, I purchased my first Hasselblad, a brand-new chrome-trimmed 500CM with black Carl Zeiss 80mm f/2.8 lens. Just to make everyone feel bad, I paid $667 for the whole package, that included an A12 film back. At that time, all of my photographer friends thought I was crazy, “You paid that much for a camera?” they repeatedly told me. Today a used 500CM in excellent condition is worth between $1500-2000, maybe more, while a new 100-megapixel Hasselblad X2D 100C body costs $8,199.
The above image was shot with that selfsame Hasselblad 500CM and Carl Zeiss 80mm f/2.8 T* lens using Ektachrome 120 film; the exposure was unrecorded. The camera was sitting on a knockoff of the classic Tiltall tripod that later fell apart; I have a real one now. The film was digitized during a time when Kodak offered it’s wonderful (I still miss it) Photo CD scanning service. The file was opened using Lemke Software’s Graphic Converter that produces relatively good quality files from a Photo CD disc but the software is not without its quirks.
Nostalgia
During the time when I made this photograph of my home, I was working as an engineer for a Great Metropolitan Telephone company and trying to make my way in the world as a professional photographer during nights and weekends. Just a few years years after I made that photograph, my life drastically changed. The photograph of the house in Maryland where I was living at the time is one that I now call from “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…” because my life has changed so much since that time.
Somewhere along the line, when Mary and I sold our Colorado-based studio, we also sold all of our Hasselblad film cameras. (Yes, it was a dumb idea.) Years later when nostalgia overcame me I purchased two Hasselblad bodies, a 503CW as well as a Flexbody, but I was never able to afford to purchase either a lens or film back for either one of these cameras, so I reluctantly sold them. Or as Chuck Berry once sang, c’est la vie, say the old folks, it goes to show you never can tell.
The definitive book on the Hasselblad film camera system is Freytag’s The Hasselblad Way, which is available used on Amazon for around $39. I’m sure there are cheaper copies on eBay. I found one selling for around fifteen bucks. Any book by Ernst Wildi is highly recommended for people interested in Hasselblad cameras.
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