Memories in a Box
In the last several years I’ve come across the occasional shot roll of film in an old camera. Every time that happens I give it a go at developing the film to see what unseen memories might be on the roll. Most of the time the roll has been exposed to daylight, or treated bad by those who have handled the cameras and not known any better – resulting in a roll full of nothing after I’ve pulled it from my developing tank.
But every once in awhile, I get lucky and there’s still something there.
I recently purchased a Brownie Hawkeye on eBay. The Hawkeye has long been on my “I’d like to shoot with one of those” list, and for some reason I’ve never picked one up even though they are still dirt cheap. The one I bought had two desirable 620 spools in it – one empty and one with a shot roll of film still on it.
Before I go much further, if you don’t know what a Brownie Hawkeye is – it is one of the most simple, square, plastic (bakelite) cameras ever made, and they were made in the millions from 1949 thru 1961 in varying types and models. The Hawkeye continued the tradition of the original Brownie by bringing photography to the masses for a whopping retail price of $7. Think of the Hawkeye as a pre-hipster version of the Holga. 1 speed, 1 aperture, manual advance.
Kodak Bownie Hawkeye 1950 advertisement
When the Hawkeye arrived, I pulled the roll of film out of the back and found it was a roll of Kodacolor-X. This film was made between 1963 and 1974, and required a special development process called “C-22”. Unfortunately C-22 chemicals are no longer available, so developing this film now as a color negative was out of the question. But like all color films, it can be cross-processed in B&W chemicals to make a B&W image.
I decided to use my tried-and-true method of Semi-Stand developing the film with Rodinal developer mixed at 1:100 in water at 68 F for 90 minutes. For fresh film I would usually go no longer than 60 minutes but given the age and unknown treatment, I decided a little longer would be advantageous.
Once the developing was done, then came the moment of pulling the developed film off the reel and checking for images. Honestly I wasn’t expecting much, but I was very surprised to actually see images on the roll! It looked like there were at least 9 images, with the last part of the roll being damaged and exposed from not being sealed shut afterwards. As expected though, after being rolled up for decades the film was badly curled. I hung it to dry and then sleeved the negatives the next day. After that they went under my trusty Magnum Contact Sheets book to flatten a day before scanning.
While waiting for the scans to flatten, I contacted the seller to see if they had any idea about the prior owner – they didn’t. They were selling items from a defunct antique store and some estate sales in the Clearwater, Florida area. I also looked up the date of manufacture for my Hawkeye, which according to the code inside was October of 1957. Knowing the film was only made between 1963 and 1974, my guess was that the images would have been shot sometime during that time frame.
This was the first image on the roll:
Given his clothing, and the backdrop of the barn, my head immediately went to maybe early 1963 and somewhere in the MidWest. Don’t ask me why – I know other parts of the country have barns but hey its my story, right?
The next image also screamed MidWest due to the manual water pump in the ground (I know, I know).
The next several images show the same man and woman, along with some others gathered somewhere in the same area as the barn and posing for images.
Renee took one look at the younger woman in shorts and stated that based on her clothing it had to be the late 1960’s. My story here is that she was married to the guy in the lighter clothing, and they were from out of town visiting her husband’s mom, dad, and the brother dressed in dark clothing with his hands in his pockets. The couple were the owners of the camera I’m guessing, and took the images to remember the visit.
There had to be one other person who was not in the images that used the camera in that last group shot, since the Hawkeye does not have a remote or delayed timer.
The next series of shots look like they could have been taken in the Clearwater, Florida area based on the house, the roof, the palm tree in the yard, and the boat in the distance behind the truck in the driveway.
The truck appears to be a late 60’s vintage Ford F150 (?) so I am thinking Renee was right in the fact that the roll was shot in the very late 1960’s. I’m guessing the couple finished off the roll taking shots at home of their homestead and their dog.
Of course we’ll never know the story of who these people are, unless we get lucky and the fates align to put my blog in front of a relative. That would be awesome, but I have never been able to connect a found roll of film to its owner.
Its weird to think that they took the time to shoot images of their family while on a trip, and their home, and then never did anything with them. They just left the roll in the camera. Something could have happened I guess that would have prevented that. After 50+ years its amazing to get a sneak-peak into another time.
I’m in the process of cleaning the camera now and getting it ready to shoot. When I use it, I’ll be certain to reflect on the fact that I’m the first person to make images with it since that roll of Kodacolor-X was shot so long ago.
Thanks for reading,
Jeremy
If you are interested in reading more about found film, check out The Rescued Film Project.
