Sun Series

Series Preparing for the Summer 2010

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Climbing the Powerlines to Capture Sunrise

I stayed up all night and right before sunrise last minute I decided to climb the Power-lines to photograph the sunrise. I had to make my way through the dense thorn bushes. I climbed and made it to the top using pegs located on one of the corners of the structure. Just before the sun stuck its head over the horizon I made it up. I began to take photos. Then thats when I felt the power-surge, at first it felt like when your hands go to sleep. Then slowly my hands began to throb as if they were on fire. Today overhead lines are routinely operated at voltages exceeding 765,000 volts between conductors, with even higher voltages possible in some cases. My hands were on bare metal. It was mildly tolerable at first then it began to get worse. I then took my hands off to get some relief attempting to balance on my shoes ( I remembered that rubber is a poor conductor). So it was a mad dash down, each time I made contact with one of the pegs it felt like I was putting a fork in an electrical outlet.