Penny Structures

I am utterly addicted to StumbleUpon. I spend
a lot of time Stumbling around the internet for cool sites. Tonight I found a page describing Penny Structures. Don't you know this meant I had to build my own penny bridge and then a penny dome?

A penny bridge would have been more interesting to shoot but I took mine apart to build the dome. The dome turned out to be a very bad photo subject but I did finally figure out how to use the Super Macro feature on my camera (woot!) and I also jerry-rigged a puffer (diffuser) for my rather annoying fixed flash.

My homemade puffer looks nothing like a real puffer. In fact, it looks exactly like the diffuser from a Thyristor Strobe that is Scotch taped to my camera in such a way that there's about 1" of space between it and the flash--which is perfect. Too close to the flash and it doesn't diffuse the strobe. It's a delicate affair best used when the camera is on a tripod and there's no wind or movement. It will do for shooting in the house.

I wish I'd known I was going to shoot these pennies before I built the dome because I would have washed them first. They came from all corners of the house and from my husband's filthy ranch truck. I had to scavenge for pennies in order to complete the dome. And macro shots of dirty pennies means macro shots of lint and dust. Ew. Still, it was a good exercise with my camera and I learned yet more about it's features.