Sydney Unposed (Hasselblad)

Hasselblad candids

URL: <http://blad.4020.net>

In August 1999 I bought the book "Full Moon", a collection of Apollo Lunar photographs re-scanned and printed by Michael Light.

What surprised me most about the pictures was that almost every moon-walk photo was done using chest-mounted cameras. Unless they wanted to use a 500mm telephoto, the astronauts never raised a camera to their face or even looked through a viewfinder!

Now if NASA could rely on this technique for a once-in-a-lifetime billion-dollar shoot, then it should also work for humbler street photography in Sydney, right? Thus from November 2004 onwards, I ventured forth with my own 'Blad…

Click on any of the following thumbnails to view an image in greater detail…

The camera used

A second-hand Hasselblad 501cm with an A12 (30212) back, with either a Planar 2.8/80 CF or Distagon 4/50 CFi-FLE. Film was C41 Kodak Portra 400VC or 160VC. Distance from subject(s) was always 2-3m.

As you suspect, the 'Blad is loud and heavy and a PITA to carry around, but the 6x6 image quality and 25 MPix scans make it worthwhile. Surprisingly it doesn't seem to attract too much attention either (aside from Lakemba that is…). I guess you could say: "Conspicuous is the new inconspicuous" !

What happened in Lakemba?…

My luck finally ran out.

In April 2005 I walked past an outdoor cafe on Haldon Street and paused for a moment to point the 'Blad at some patrons. I continued walking down the street, but a minute later was jumped by a couple of men from the cafe, who angrily objected to being "filmed". Lots of yelling, and one shoved me in the chest while the other yanked the camera from my hands.

In order to retrieve my ($AUD 4000) gear, I had to follow them back to the cafe. More verbal abuse. I had to endure thirty minutes of this, along with threats and lectures on what right "you people" had photographing "them" without permission. Eventually with a little luck (and patience and rat-cunning), I managed to get the camera back, sans film. Phew! Other photographers have not been so lucky…

After I escaped and calmed down, I shrugged off the incident as yet another piece of racism and religious bigotry in Sydney's Wild West. But then a few months later, I noticed the following in The Bulletin Magazine (16 Aug 2005, at p.21):

Terror Central
 
Haldon Street, Lakemba, 30 minutes south-west of Sydney's central business district, looks like many other streets in outer-suburban Australia — charcoal chicken and kebab stores competing against each other; grocery shops, a travel centre, [… and] some desultory looking shops remarkable only because they bear signs in the undulating script of Arabic. But talk to almost anyone in Australia's spy community, and something else quickly emerges — it's widely regarded as a stamping ground for some of the most dangerous people in the country.
 
There are more ASIO officers, ASIO paid informants and undercover agents along this street than any other in Australia. These intelligence operatives regularly visit and monitor the strip to identify any new figures on the scene and to make an ongoing assessment about who are the movers and shakers in the area. […]

And this is where I went to take no-permission, in-yer-face photographs with a loud, clackerty camera the size of a shoe-box?…