Jan 1955 ad for the Kodak Brownie Hawkeye camera and optional flash
Toronto. As kids, we sometimes missed the start of a movie at a Saturday matinee. The solution was simple – we sat through the second running until we saw what we had missed, then left …
As a kid, on an early 1950s Christmas, my parents upgraded me from a 127 ‘Baby Brownie’ to a newer 620 Brownie FLASH Hawkeye. It was still a box camera and fixed focus but used a larger film and a flash! I had finally advanced my gear. The gift package included not only the camera and flash gun, but a couple of B&W 620 film rolls, batteries, some #5 flash bulbs and a ‘safety shield’ for the flash gun – one side clear; the other blue for “colour” film.
My good friend George Dunbar sent along this c1955 ad in LIFE for the Brownie Hawkeye – flash version. I enjoyed using mine through high school, but could barely afford B&W, let alone colour. The film was developed and I joined the school camera club to do the printing – 8×10 photo paper double weight was ten cents a sheet – chemistry and enlarger use were free.
