Street Portraits Shot On A Hasselblad 500 CM

Into The Hasselblad 500 CM

Carl Pendle pointed a video camera at the ground glass of his Hasselblad 500 CM as he shot street portraits around his home town. The whole thing is inspired by the viral video Paris Through A Pentax but goes one step further by including scans of each shot he took! Hit the jump to watch the video.

Into The Hasselblad 500 CM

Carl started out by shooting still photos through the viewfinder of classic cameras but light reflecting into the top of his Hasselblad 500 CM was causing and issue when he tried to shoot video. He found the solution by using black cards to control the light hitting the ground glass and the result speaks for itself. The ground glass image is bright with excellent contrast and it’s interesting to see a scan of the actual images he takes during the video.

Carl shot the series on Kodak Portra 400 120 roll film and scanned the resulting images himself. He warns that this was just an initial test and that a few of his images aren’t entirely sharp but as a proof of concept it’s still pretty nifty.

Paris Through The Pentax

It’s All About The Ground Glass

It’s unfortunate that the advent of digital technology has removed this kind of waistlevel experience from photography. Sure, there’s a few cameras with flip up LCD monitors that allow you to frame your shot from a lower position. But the experience of bending over your camera and peering into the ground glass, the image reversed left to right making it nearly impossible to follow your subject, represents a kind of visceral pleasure that newer photographers may never know.

Carl’s video comes close. But now that I think of it I might just need to pick up a used Hasselblad. That thing takes me back!

What’s your take on Carl’s TTV (through the viewfinder) video? Post your comments below and keep the conversation going!

Scroll to Top