The life and times of mr Chris Scott: September 2009

Friday, 25 September 2009

My CV

Below is a copy of my current CV

Thursday, 24 September 2009

Watch Display Stand

Watch display stand concept made from MDF and polished aluminium

Wednesday, 23 September 2009

'Organic' Seating

These designs make up a series of seating concepts based on the theme of 'organic'

Tea Kettle Concept

This is a tea kettle concept drawing inspiration from chemistry and the seriousness of certain tea drinkers. Who treat tea making almost as a exact science.

Sunday, 20 September 2009

The word "Smena" (Cmeha) is roughly translated into "Young Generation" in English. The Smena line of cameras were designed to provide inexpensive, accessible, and excellent photography tools to the hard-working young Soviets of the time. The first Smena model rolled out of assembly in 1952. Smena's continued to be produced until the early 90’s. Many a famous and infamous* photographer, both inside and outside of the USSR, have first cut their chops on a Smena's full manual controls.

I bought this camera from eBay for the inexpensive sum of £20, what first attracted me to this boxy looking camera was its simple plain look. Although the camera might look simple, it boasts a lot of great features missing from several other 35mm cameras. One will soon find that they are falling in love with these features, be it from the way one has to manually cock the shutter before shooting, to the way the frame counter dial turns as you advance the film.

The main difference between the Smena and other 35mm cameras is the need to cock the shutter before releasing the shutter to take your shots. This is something you will forget to do almost as much as you will remember at first, once you get used to doing it though it becomes a pleasurable experience. Also the shutter release is not connected to the advance wheel, which makes for the possibility of some sweet double exposures.

The viewfinder is pretty useless, as it doesn’t give you an accurate view of what will be the final outcome, but that shouldn’t be an issue if you’re a follower of the golden rules of lomography, one of which being ‘shoot from the hip’.

The Smena helps you an awful lot in getting the right settings when taking photos, with the use of symbols both on the shutter speed ring and the focusing ring.

A ‘bulb’ setting on the Smena is a very welcomed addition which, when coupled with a cable release will let you achieve some great, crisp looking long exposures.

To use a flash with the Smena you will have to get yourself a hot shoe flash adapter with a pc wire. I used my mini flash from my Holga 135bc camera and placed coloured gels over it, this produced bright flashes of colour.

All in all this is one of my favourite Lomo cameras and once you get over its learning curve you will quickly become a master of this very capable camera. So if one crops up on eBay for under £30 buy it and you will fall in love. It is almost, but not quite like buying a cheap Russian bride, the only difference being this one will love you back.

Below are some photos taken with the Smena