Victor Hasselblad.

The Man Behind the Camera. Text by Sören Gunnarsson.

Journal, Stockholm, Sweden, 2016. 428 pp., color and black-and-white illustrations, 6¼x9".

Victor Hasselblad’s life became dramatic and successful. Deep-rooted conflicts in his formative years played a decisive role in his future. As a youth he sought refuge in nature and photography. With time he became a world traveller and a wealthy industrialist. Just before his passing he sold his camera company and established a foundation with the aim of promoting education and research within the fields of science and photography.

The Hasselblad camera made its huge breakthrough when the American astronauts began to use it in space. The photographs of the first men on the Moon are some of the most published images in the world.

The camera also figured largely for more earthbound photographers, amateurs and professionals alike, working in the fields of advertising, fashion, photojournalism, portraiture, nature, science and medicine.

The idea for his camera came to Victor Hasselblad (1906-78) in his youth when he travelled around the Swedish countryside to photograph birds. Never really satisfied with his results, he began to dream about a better camera. He published his thoughts and when the WW2 broke out he received an assignment from the Swedish Air Force to build a military aerial camera. Production started in a garage near the harbour in Gothenburg. The civilian camera was put on hold but three years after the war had finished, it was launched and it became an immediate success. Even now, the modern Hasselblad is built around the same basic concept of a modular camera system.

Victor Hasselblad – The Man Behind the Camera is the result of many years of research and is based on extensive interviews and voluminous correspondence. Apart from relating the story of the man behind the camera, the book also contains a record of Hasselblad camera models and describes the events that took place when the company changed from analogue to digital photography. Also included is a section about The Erna and Victor Hasselblad Foundation.

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