See how 60,000 volt sparks protect a computer from viruses—or at least flying insects …
“Continue reading” for details about the photography and high voltage behind this.
The photo above shows a golden ring of 60,000 volt sparks around my laptop. I reckon it looks like one of those rings of power around a World of Warcraft character protecting it. From what? Viruses of course. Hence “High voltage antivirus” – for PC or Mac.
And I have other versions…
The flame coloured ‘lite’ antivirus version. 
The high intensity platinum professional antivirus version for extreme performance.
Note that as in all my photos there is no “photoshopping”. The pictures are all single shots and effects are produced with long exposures. Here’s how:
The left top photo above shows the ZVS fly-back supply driving a 4 stage CW multiplier. It is capable of 5 inch sparks but shown here with half that. The centre and right photos show how the rotating set-up swings the sparks in a circle around the laptop but not too close to my face (just). The centre terminal is earthed and is relatively safe. The ‘hot’ electrode is closest to my face. There is a bit of motion blur in the main photo because the sparks started just in front of my face. They are very loud and bright and it is hard not to reflexively blink and pull back a bit even when you are expecting it. Being close to high DC voltages gives a spooky feeling as the ionic wind blows on you and your hairs stand on end as they charge up. As the spark moves these feelings move across your face.
To create the main picture the following sequence is used.
1 The rotating electrodes are turned on. The shot is done in darkness.
2 I trigger the 10 second camera exposure using a remote control. The indirect flash goes off and this provides a natural color background to give normal skin tones.
3 The yellow filter is put in place (colored acrylic held in front of the lens). Everything from now on will be yellow ie sparks and computer screen, complete with yellow shadows and reflections.
4 Sparks are turned on and remain on for the duration of the 10 second exposure during just over a full rotation of the electrodes. The yellow filtered sparks as well as any yellow reflections on the computer screen, are added to the exposure.
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Photo Date: April 5, 2008