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Skywalking Video is Not for the Faint of Heart

By Norman Chan

Three friends climb under-construction bridges for vertigo-inducing photographs and video.

I've previously written about Skywalking, the trend of photographers trespassing to climb skyscrapers, statues, and bridges to take incredible images of themselves from the top of the world. It's an incredibly risky hobby, the danger of which can't fully appreciated until you watch video from the climb. Earlier this month, three Russian skywalkers were caught climbing two in-construction bridges in Vladivostok after posting photos on social networking sites during the climb. The trio were fined 300 rubles ($10) each for trespassing, which doesn't seem like enough of a punishment to deter them from future trips. Vertigo-inducing video of the climb posted on YouTube shows the climbers wearing no harnesses or safety equipment, carrying only backpacks and their cameras to the top of one bridge's 320 meter-tall pylon.

Raskalov's amazing photos from this skywalking trip are on his blog. This one is particularly unnerving.