Hasselblad and the Masters

The night before last I won a copy of the Hasselblad Masters Volume 2 Emotions. Just another photography book? Not likely.

Back in June this year I keenly clung to Hasselblad’s new H4D-60 camera, the only one bought into the country for ‘showing’, yet I would call it teasing. This week we saw the official launch here in Australia of this state of the art camera.

It bought back memories: the feel of a good quality medium format digital in your hands is something not to be taken lightly and as a fan of the medium format this little box excited me greatly.

The rep, keen I didn’t snap too many frames and wind up the shutter count, I think, breathed a sigh of relief when I finally took the camera away from my eye. This baby boasts a 60 megapixel 40 x 54mm sensor and with it sets new industry standards.

The unprecedented resolution delivers an ultimate level of image detail, making it ideal for commercial shooters who demand ultimate image resolution or for any extremely discerning photographer who demands both creative flexibility and ultimate image quality and this is where I see Hasselbald’s audience growing. 

Back to the book................

“The Hasselblad Masters represent photography at its finest; at its most inspired, most communicative, most beautiful. They are young, old, western, eastern, classical, experimental, traditional, modern, and futuristic. They have perhaps but one thing in common: they are masters at conveying an instant, an emotion, with images. Masters of the art and craft that is photography.”

In commoner terms, it’s a mighty impressive ‘read’ or should we say viewing. 

Nice work Hasselbald on both the book and the camera (the camera is on top of my Santa list), that can really deliver what we want from in-camera so perfectly. Now that has to keep loads of us happy!

My favourite quote from the book:
“Emotion is the electoral current that flows through an image”. Joao Carlos

Image by Hasselbald Master Chinese Bang Peng is the winner of this year’s Hasselblad’s Landscape and Nature award. A series of his from his western region of Sichuan Province in China captures the culture and colour of a maybe barren environment.

Image by Hasselbald Master, Mark Holthusen, USA