Last weekend I found myself attending a youth baseball tournament in Superior Wisconsin. Like any good photographer would, I had a camera in tow. This day it was the Mamiya 6 that I had bought maybe a month earlier.
One of my friends who at the tournament took notice that I had a camera on me that she had never seen before, and started asking some questions about the Mamiya.
One of the questions asked was how much it cost me. I gave the dollar amount, and also commented that it was the second most I've ever spent on a camera.
A few questions later and she asks "Oh yeah. Is that a Hasselblad?"
If you are unfamiliar with the Is That A Hasselblad?" [ITAH] saying, it is a question that every photographer shooting with a film camera gets asked at some point in their life by a stranger. Scientists haven't discovered why this happens yet, but it does. All the time.
Her asking me if my Mamiya 6 was a Hasselblad was with knowledge of this phenomenon and was a complete joke.
However, when the ITAH was unleashed, an elderly woman sitting in front of us unveiled her eavesdropping as she turned to me and said: "I'm sorry, but I just have to see this."
In a quick moment, I thought to myself "Oh neat. An old photographer who probably used a Hasselblad in her day."
I held out the Mamiya 6 to let her take a good look at it. Her enthusiasm quickly deflated, and she said to me "Oh. I thought you two were talking about a ring."
There you have it. I once had a Leica confused for a Luger, and now I have a Mamiya confused with matrimony.
Now here is a photo from that day taken with the ring.
