Oman – the Hasselblad files

A few hours before the departure, the spontaneous idea came over me to take my Hasselblad with me on the journey to Oman. I still had Ilford Pan F+ films lying around and had perfect experiences with analogue photography on trips as in Oslo recently. The low ISO number should not be a restriction in the sun-drenched destination, and the resolution of the medium format camera should be helpful for the expected landscape pictures. With the Planar 110mm f/2 I hoped for different image outcomes. After all, Planar stands for a unique characteristic. If you consider the crop factor of the 6×6 Hasselblad, the lens with 60mm f/1.1 has fascinating values. It is the fastest lens built for medium format.

Übrigens kannst du diesen Blogpost auch auf Deutsch weiterlesen…

But in the end, I took the camera rather seldom in my hand to get sufficient beautiful pictures. And then some mishap happened with the film. Either the material was x-rayed in my hand luggage, or the developer was too old. Maybe someone of my readers has more experience and can see the kind of error from the pictures.

I’ll show the images anyway.
For one thing, I like these unique landscape shots too much to hide them. On the other hand, the mistake takes away a bit of the expected cleanness of the Ilford film. Also: why shouldn’t I show any errors?

The picture series reflects the diversity of Oman very well. We froze at an altitude of 2000m, the views into the deep gorges of Jebel Shams overwhelmed us, we hid from the shimmering heat of the desert and enjoyed the turquoise water at the coasts. Also, the beginning of the football series, which I already showed, finds its place in this series.

Finally, it’s always a good idea to take an analogue camera on a journey with you. And a sturdy Hasselblad is the right choice. The art of taking pictures is different, and the results may be worth seeing, even if one of the many possible errors occurs.