I have three of these old Brownie Hawk-eye cameras from the early 1900′s that I decided I would dust off today and put some film in one to see if it would work. They are basically cardboard boxes with a wooden spool inside, a shutter release, a (worthless) viewfinder and a fixed meniscus lens. They were cheap when they were made-you could pick one up for around $4 when they were produced in 1926.
Most of my ancestors are from the northeastern corner of Arkansas in the Mississippi delta, where they were sharecroppers, farming mostly cotton. My grandma says they were basically “white slaves”, which I interpret as a dramatic way of saying, “it sucked and we were really poor.”
Below is a picture of the camera I loaded with film and my dog Huckleberry trying to assist me. There are also pictures of my grandfather, “Papaw”, my grandmother, “Momma Ann” and mom Deb at different stages in their lives. Being that they were poor and this camera was cheap and common, I’m thinking they probably used something similar and I’m hoping that the photographs that come out of this bad boy will look similar to the photos below.
Love,
Aron
