Another pylon panorama

Another pylon panorama? In a way, yes. This autumn sunset scene with its colourful sky (note that the perception of coloured light is actually just electromagnetic energy at different wavelengths) was artificially enhanced to highlight the wires. It's sort of an artistic rendering of how it might look if the sensitivity of the camera included a wider range of frequencies.

High-voltage electricity, the lifeblood of our civilization. Within just a few decades, the form of energy that's probably the most volatile of all has become indispensable to our daily life. It required and requires a lot of logistic energy (if such a thing exists ;) to supply stable, reliable power to the consumers, since you can't really store electricity in its native form - and no, batteries don't count, that's chemical energy, similar to the corn field near the camera, which is a convenient way to store solar energy as food for the cattle during the winter months.

Note the top wire which was NOT highlited. This is because it's a glass fibre for data communications, and since it's coated in metal, it doubles as a lightning rod (of sorts). During the month of September, these lines were updated around the district - which explains the makeshift wood construction that kept the cables from falling on the ground if anything went wrong.

High voltage aerial cables are still the most popular way of distributing electricity. Some engineers claim (ever since the 1960's) that laying the cables underground, coating them in polyurethane, would be favourable for the scenery, reduce the line loss caused by the air capacity between the wires and reduce ozone production (380 kV are capable of ionizing the air, attracting pollution particles and increasing the chemical fallout along the lee side of the wires - think "laser printer on steroids"). However, pylons and cables are cheaper in the short run, so we're going to see those for quite some time around...

Europe / Germany

Lat: 49° 28' 42.38" N
Long: 11° 48' 26.35" E

Elevation: 400 m

→ maps.google.com [EXT]

Precision is: High. Pinpoints the exact spot.

Shot with Canon EOS 20D, Sigma 18-125mm, on Manfrotto 303 SPH head. Lens correction with Kekus PanoTools. Panorama built in Stitcher 5.0.1. Conversion with CubicConverter. Tripod removal and line light effect in Photoshop. Compression done in CubicConverter.