My dog, Hawkeye, and his Brownie Hawkeye
My mom had one of these. If you were born before 1970, your mom probably had one of these too:
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My mom.
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My brother. Prepared for Walking Dead, I guess.
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My dad.
It sat on the floor in my older brother’s room. I remember picking it up and making the button click. Then I’d mess with both buttons and it wouldn’t click and I couldn’t figure out why. Today, I know why. Ha! I don’t necessarily have the corner on the Brownie Hawkeye market, but I do have quite a few of them.
Made of Bakelite and metal, these cameras have a wonderful, boxy style that just begs to be messed with. I’ve dressed them up as Gala Edition Hawkeyes, making them ready to go out for the evening:
You’ve got to use 620 film (120, respooled onto a 620 spool – is what I use). 12, 6cm x 6cm images per roll.
Another thing all the kids are doing these days – flipping the lens! A flipped lens is a fairly easy modification to perform on a Hawkeye and it gives some nice distortion:
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Horse sculpture by Jeffro
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Dunes.
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Karmann Ghia
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3 Crows Garage
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Fireworks label wallpaper.
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Rain forest.
Check out Randy’s exceptionally cool Hawkeye Mod site: http://hawkeyemods.com/
My dog, Hawkeye, has his own Kodak Brownie Hawkeye camera (of course). I put a graphic of him on my car and film freezer.
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The car.
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The film freezer.
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The lovely box.
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The lab thought my pictures were messed up.
James Surprenant modified a few of these Brownie Hawkeyes to accept electronic flash. He sent me one:
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Brownie Hawkeye Flash image.
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Brownie Hawkeye Flash image. My dog was terrified of that Barbie pony.
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Brownie Hawkeye Flash image. Can you believe someone actually trusted me to babysit their children?
In an effort to bring about world peace, I’m peppering the world with junk store cameras. I recently brought a Brownie Hawkeye Gala Edition camera (flipped lens) along on a trip to the UK and Iceland.
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I brought this Gala Edition Hawkeye Brownie on a trip to the United Kingdom and Iceland.
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The backside.
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Largs, Scotland. Taken with the Brownie Hawkeye Gala Edition.
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Largs, Scotland.
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Largs, Scotland.
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Largs, Scotland.
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Weymouth, England.
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I left the camera at Fotografi, Reykjavik, Iceland
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The Gala Hawkeye ended up with Ari Sigvaldason who gave me his wonderful book of photographs. Fotografi, Reykjavik, Iceland
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The Gala Edition Brownie Hawkeye ended up in the window dispaly Fotografi, Reykjavik, Iceland
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"Mt Fuji" at Fotografi in Reykjavik.
Fotografi in Reykjavik.
I have three Brownie Hawk-eyes. Two are lefties and one is a rightie. I wonder if this was some production oversight or were they designed that way for a reason?
I am sure you have observed the same in your own cameras, that the catch and lever for opening these are positioned on different sides. Or, could I possibly have the only Rightie in the world? Even less likely; do I have the only two Lefties?
Richard: I have not seen a Brownie Hawkeye with a shutter button on the left side. Huh.
Richard: It’s been pointed out to me that you said the catch, not the shutter button. Sorry. I had never noticed that before but you’re right!
I think he means the silver release lever to get the back off. I’ve seen it on different sides of mine as well. I wondered about that as well.
Oh yeah! Duh… Thanks. Now I gotta go look. YUP! They’re left and right. Haphazardly ( to me, anyway.)
Hi Marcy,
I inherited a few Hawkeye’s from Doug’s old collection. I just recently cleaned up one and loaded it with some 120 B&W. Now let’s go shoot around Martinsville 🙂
Randy: Any results to show us yet? Martinsville … one of these days I’ll get back there!