A Thirty-Three Year Throwback - Photo East 1991

by Skip Cohen

It's my favorite day of the week, and today, it's all thanks to my good buddy Jim Morton. He recently sent me a batch of old images from his archives. They were all captured when we worked together back in our Hasselblad days.

That's me, Don Blair, and Hasselblad's leading author and "professor," Ernst Wildi. Ernst passed away in 2023 at 100, and "Big Daddy" Blair in 2004 at 79. Both of them were cut from the same cloth when it came to perfection in their images, passion for the craft, and love for helping photographers raise the bar on their skills. They were both in their mid-sixties when Jim snapped this shot in the Hasselblad booth at Photo East in New York.

Besides this image bringing back memories, which is what Throwback Thursday is all about, it occurred to me that Jim's unofficial role at Hasselblad was just as important as his primary responsibility. Jim was our Customer Service and Technical Manager, handled our exhibit at various trade shows, and training, just to name a few of the hats he wore.  However, his unofficial role was documenting Hasselblad's activity in the industry. Thanks to Jim's stash of images from all his years with the company, we have so many great memories.

Who's your family or company historian? There was no social media back in 1991, and certainly no Throwback Thursday. It's so important to be able to follow a company or your family's history in photos and videos. Thanks to technology, everybody has the ability to document their business and family growth and build archives of images that will become invaluable as time goes by.

THANKS, Jim, for every click of the shutter during all those years, not to mention being a great friend to so many of us in the industry.

Happy Throwback Thursday!