Hasselblad - Turning Back the Clock Thirty Years!

by Skip Cohen

I know I've shared this group shot before, but after twenty years of writing Throwback Thursday posts, I'm running out of old photographs! However, the fun of throwbacks is always in the memories they bring back more than the actual photographs. This one brings out some special backstories from PhotoEast, that year called Viscomm.
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• Yes, it was still the "Boyz Club" back then. In fact, all but five people in the group had been with Hasselblad for over ten years or more, and the overwhelming majority of Hasselblad owners were also men. Within a year or two of this photograph, two of our best sales staff were Karen Hart and Suzie Gross!
• That's Jim Morton on the far right, front row. Jim did a fantastic job putting the booth together for every show. I used to help him hang all the photographs, but it wasn't until a few years ago that he told me he gave me the assignment so I'd stay out of his hair! LOL
• On the other end, in the back row far left, is Jim Ritter. Jim could do my signature better than I could. It became a standing joke to see how long it would take him to convince a hotel bartender that he was me, forgot his room number and had to put the tab on "his" room.
• In the middle of the front row, kneeling down, is Rudy Guttosch. Rudy was Hasselblad USA's first Electronic Imaging Manager, which was ironic since we didn't have any truly digital products. The first product was a collection of off-the-shelf components for journalists to transmit their negatives via phone lines. It's also thanks to Rudy that I got the unofficial award for "Best humiliation of an employee at a trade show" when I hired a 200+ lb. opera singer, dressed in full Swedish attire, right down to the sackcloth and Viking helmet to sing him Happy Birthday on the trade show floor at PhotoWest.
• Right behind Rudy is Staffan Junel, then Hasselblad's worldwide president. He's credited with some of my more bizarre memories. To start, he loved McDonald's Big Macs and told us once how he liked to freeze them to eat later on. I'm not sure how or why - if you've ever tasted lettuce that's been frozen, it's like eating Saran Wrap! He's also responsible for insisting all of us go for a midnight walk and skinny dip in the Baltic Sea one night. The water was icey cold and it was dark. I just remember never slowing down once I was in the water. I did sort of a dog paddle stroke to keep my body parallel to the surface and out of the slimy seaweed!
• That's Tony Corbell, second on the left of the front row. Tony was Hasselblad's first Dean of Hasselblad University. He's also responsible for over half of my funniest stories from those days. We got into so much trouble with the "Z-man", HUSA's CFO for commitments we'd make for program sponsorships. We were eventually told we weren't allowed to travel together anymore - we'd come back from every trip with more ideas on how to spend money on educational events! LOL
• Last but not least are the director's chairs. We had this idea for a new Hasselblad premium product: canvas director's chairs in Hasselblad blue with the logo. I got beat up at one of the Board meetings for not getting corporate approval. Hasselblad was also one of the first companies to have full programs in their booth featuring some of the industry's most recognized professional photographers.

And there you have it—the true fun of Throwback Thursday, a walk down Memory Lane. It's the perfect way to remember why we love this industry the way we do—it's about photographs and their ability to stop time, giving us memories that become tangible reminders of the past.

If you haven't taken a few minutes yet to look through some old files and photographs, what are you waiting for?

​Happy Throwback Thursday!