Kodak Hawkeye Flashfun

Last weekend, I was in Taiping to meet up with my parents and also to leave my two boys there with their cousin. It is a first time for them to stay there for the next two weeks and that would give them time to connect with my parents and learn a thing or two about living life.

While there, I leafed through the photo albums at my parents' house in Taiping especially the ones in black and white. I could learn a thing or two about composition from my father, who was a prolific photographer in his younger days. I found this picture, of a young boy, hair plastered to his head from the Tancho haircream, black plastic-framed spectacles hiding out most of his eyes and he was wearing a short-sleeved shirt with some designs of musical instruments, short pants from which spindly legs came out and he wore ankle-high moccasins and white socks. His left hand held a plastic strap and the strap went down low, almost touching the ground and at the end of it, was a plastic camera. Behind him, was the old Subang Airport. That camera had some blue colour to it while the rest was in black. I could remember the colours from the memory that was initiated from looking at the picture. That was me, in 1971. The pictures I took of the airport were blurry then, from the inadequacy of the plastic and fixed focus lens and the limited ISO capability. That was my first camera. To advance to the next film frame, one would have to crank a ribbed wheel at the top of the camera until it could not turn anymore.

I had thought that I was 14 when I got my first camera but actually, that Kodak camera was my second. This was the first and I was 11 years old then. The Kodak camera gave sharper pictures. As a Scout, I used to go camping and I would bring the Kodak to take pictures of my colleagues at the campsite. This Kodak was a plastic boxy gadget which was narrow at the base and high at the height. It would be like the modern camera but vertical with the viewfinder in the side middle. The bottom half of it was in light brown to pink while the top half was in silver. The top half had the place for the putting in the flash bulb. The camera ran on batteries and the trigger was placed at the side and one had to use the index finger to push it down so that the picture can be taken. I ran through this Kodak Collector's website http://www.nwmangum.com/Kodak/ and managed to know that it was a Hawkeye Flashfun which was manufactured between 1961 to 1967. Kudos to the Kodak collector for the information!

It is amazing that the pictures, though in black and white can initiate the remembrance of memories in colour. And for a while, I could remember that day, the sounds and colours. I don't remember where the camera went but there was a long period between leaving school to enter university until 1985 when I revived the hobby again.