Death of my xPan

I’m currently on a cross Europe adventure, visiting 8 countries and hoping to take many great photographs. Then as I walk out onto Piazza San Marco in Venice, raise my xPan to my eye, press the shutter and….. Nothing. The mighty xPan was dead. I had a feeling something was wrong as on the last roll it started to make some horrible squeaking noises, but I convinced myself it was the new kind of film I was trying, or maybe the cold weather. Anyways, I’ve been mourning the loss ever since. I’ll send it in to Hasselblad for servicing when I get home, hopefully it is repairable.

In tribute to my xPan, here are some of my shots on Flickr

And here is my all time favorite shot taken last summer in Paris…

Photo of the Week

This week’s photo is from a trip to Berlin last November.  I really liked the subway and train system and took many pictures.  I was a bit disappointed that what I thought had been a colour roll was actually a black and white.  Many of the shots just didn’t work in black and white, however this one, with it’s contrasty architecture, really lends itself well to it.

 

Taken with my Hasselblad xPan, 45mm lens, Kodak Tri-X, developed in D76.

Photo of the Week

Photo of the week, from a while back…  Haven’t taken many pictures since moving back, I live in a bit of a cultural wasteland…  But I digress.  This picture was from Berlin, one of my favourite cities of Europe.  Everything fell into place for me on this one, I saw the accordion player, the light turned red so he couldn’t cross and everyone lined up and waited while (unknowingly) I took their picture.

 

Taken with my Hasselblad xPan, 45mm lens, and likely Fuji Neopan 400, but I could be wrong on this one…

Photo of the Week

I took this picture on our last day of our 6 month stay in Paris.  It’s a picture I’d been planning to take for a long time, in fact I have a similar one I did with my d70.  The original was taken on a night time walk with my dad several years ago.  He has a great eye for composition, and while the original was taken from the landing of the staircase, this one was taken from platform level.  Many of the Metro stations in Paris are unique, and this one is definitely my favourite.  I am still sad that I never went to the Arts et Metiers station, but we’ll be back sometime…

 

Taken with my Hasselblad xpan and Fuji Pro 400H film, handheld.

Photo of the Week

This week’s photo is from Potsdammer Platz in Berlin, Germany.  It’s a truly amazing place with an incredible history.  It used to be a sort of no man’s land between the old East and West Germany’s, but has since experienced some renewal.  There are now many buildings, restaurants, etc, and it’s a very busy place during the day as well as at night.

This shot was taken with my Hasselblad Xpan using the 45mm lens and Fuji Pro 400H film.  I had a bunch of shots from the same night and I really love how they all turned out so great.

The Xpan Book

It’s published!  Matthew Joseph got a bunch of us Xpan owners together through flickr and put together a book of 32 Xpan pictures (colour and black and white) to be published and sold on Blurb.  All the photographers donated their images, and any proceeds will go towards a charity.  It was quite the undertaking for Matthew Joseph, lots of haranguing to get photos and text from everyone, but he did a great job pulling it all together.  Due to the wonders of alphabetical order, I got the first shot in the book!

To view/buy the book

My picture.