#TBT - Back to 1993 and Hasselblad

by Skip Cohen

​The fun of Throwback Thursday is often in the hunt. I never know what I'm going to find. Since it's the start of the new year, it seemed appropriate to look back on a moment of celebration from my past. And even though I shared this story in a post almost ten years ago, it deserves to be shared again.

The year is 1993, and Hasselblad won a Mobius Award for print advertising. Even though it's usually an ad agency event, off I went to Chicago for the dinner and evening presentations. Just to say we were proud of the recognition would be a huge understatement. 

However, God forbid I should have to go to a rubber chicken dinner solo, so I talked my good buddy and Chicago resident, Tom Danielson, into joining me along with Jim Ritter, the Hasselblad sales manager for Chicago. 

Here's what I didn't know...the appropriate attire. I called and spoke with one of the more senior people at the Mobius Awards, and I was told it was usually a mix of black tie and business attire. All three of us owned a tux, so why not represent Hasselblad as upscale as possible?

Here's the second thing I didn't know...that we'd be the only three in black tie out of a couple hundred people that evening! Three times I was given a drink order by somebody who thought I was a waiter! Had we been smarter, Tom, Jim, and I should have taken their money and split the evening's profit.

There really is no moral of the story here, just a fun thirty-one-year-old flashback and a lesson learned: Always check with at least two sources regarding attire at any industry function. And one more lesson: print your images. Had this been digital at the time, it would have been on a floppy disc and long since lost. I'd be missing all the fun of Throwback Thursday!

If you have yet to go off searching for an old memory-maker, you're missing an excellent opportunity to create a reminder of the wonder of our industry. As professional photographers, you're magicians, helping people turn the intangible into tangible memories they can hold for a lifetime.