Cat Interrupted

 The modular construction of the Kodak Brownie Hawkeye Flash makes it easy to disassemble for cleaning or modification.  The easiest and most common mod is to reverse the lens front-to-back.  With the lens unmodified, the minimum distance for sharp focus is about eight feet. Flipping the lens brings the minimum for sharp focus down to about 3.5 feet.  However, only the center of the image will be seen to be sharply rendered, while the periphery becomes progressively blurred.

I loaded a roll of slightly expired Tri-X into my Brownie Hawkeye Flash and made twelve exposures in the house in about five minutes.  Because of the low light I set the camera to use the shutter's time mode to permit an exposure of an estimated one second; the camera was braced solidly on the floor to avoid camera movement.  The first shot caught Ruthie, my cat, unawares at her water bowl.  She was a bit irritated with that intrusion and threatened to leave the room.  I apologized, convincing her to stay, and she composed herself and assumed a more dignified pose.

In addition to the peripheral defocusing the flipped lens also seems to have an increased tendency to flare with back lighting.  

I took the camera into the living room and made a couple shots of Roxie with the camera braced on a chair .  Her skepticism about the process seems emphasized by the sharpness of the eye closest to the center of the image compared to the slight blur of eye closer to the edge.