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burning man 2009, my experience

09.11.2009

Whenever I am asked "What is Burning Man?", I have a hard time trying to explain it. Here are a few possible answers:

It's like Disneyland for adults.

It's like Woodstock, but instead of live bands, a bunch of techno music.

It's a 40,000 hippies hanging out in the desert.

It's organized chaos.

There's some truth to all of the above, but I think my favorite description that I've heard is... it's a temporary experiment in community. Basically, around 40,000 people assemble in the middle of the desert and form "Black Rock City". A place to get away from society, be yourself, express yourself and experience something unlike anything else on this planet. I first went to Burning Man in 2007 and loved it so much, I wanted to go back every year. Unfortunately I couldn't make it last year, but you can read all about my first time here.

I think I was impressed with how warm & friendly everyone is out there. It feels like a small town where everyone knows each other and they say hello in passing instead of just walking and ignoring the person you pass. I was also impressed with the fact that even with all those people out there, I didn't see so much as a cigarette butt on the ground. They have a "leave no trace" motto and the people who attend are very respectful of it and do their best to clean up after themselves.

The people watching is also fabulous... better than Time Square, the Las Vegas Strip & Hollywood Boulevard combined. The outfits, or lack there of, are unique and fun to look at. People literally just let it all hang out. They aren't concerned with societies norm. The march to the beat of their own drum and I am also really impressed how tolerant the participants are of each other. I also love how clever & creative people are. I appreciate their artistic vision.

Here are some of the personal images of me and my friends from my trip. I am still going through my art & people photos and I'll be posting them soon. Here's our camp, Camp Photon. Because we had a dedicated theme camp, we got better placement towards the center of the city and our fancy plywood framed photos, lured people if for a closer look, and we were able to get a lot of our models that way... just random, interesting folks walking by. You can actually see some of the raindrops if you look closely in this image:

I was stoked to be able to hang out with some of the most gifted photographers on the planet. It's actually quite humbling to be surrounded by so much pure talent, and I was stoked to spend time bonding with my friends.

Here's our crew from left to right: Michael Schuhmann, Parker Pfister, John Michael Cooper, Regis Chen, Danielle Hankinson, Keats Elliott, Becker, Tony Bisson, John Mireles, Joe Photo, Nick Adams

On the way in. This year's theme was "Evolution"

Keats & I rocking our goggles during a dust storm on the first afternoon. The dust was crazy this year. It's almost like a fine baby powder. A week and several showers later, I am still finding dust in random places. Photo by Joe Photo.

"It's not a skirt it's a KILT!", in my best fake Scottish accent.

So in the spirit of getting out of your daily norm, including fashion and style, I bought and rocked a Utilikilt the whole time I was there. It was awesome, very liberating and the nice draft came in handy in the hot desert. I am confident enough in my masculinity to proudly sport the kllt and I think it's going to be a regular part of my wardrobe. (I wore it during poker last night).

Here I am in action. Photo by Joe Photo:

I got several comments on my shirt. Photo by Nick Adams:

Another image from Joe. Check out my poor dusty camera:

Whaddaya think? Can I be a kilt model?

Here's Keats getting high on life via our neighbor's trampoline (Photo by Joe Photo):

Speaking of Joe Photo, this guy is one of my very best friends. After my first trip to Burning Man in 2007, I came home and made Joe get tickets to come with me the following year. Unfortunately I couldn't make it last year but he went anyway and got amazing Images. I was really stoked to spend some quality time with him as he is an amazing man, full of life, full of passion for photography and full of passion for his family. Joe's the best:

John Michael Cooper is literally a genius. He's too humble to admit it, but the guy is in a league of his own. He's one of the most creative photographers on the planet and I always love spending time with him. He rocked a full suit, bowler hat, complete with apple in his homage to The Son of Man painting by Rene Magritte

Parker Pfister is another one of those uber talented guys who's creativity just oozes from his pores. I remember watching him share some of his personaly images at WPPI a few years ago and I was literally in tears. I am sure Parker would like my to point out that he in not going grey, but in fact, he was just covered in dust. True story.

Michael Schuhmann also braved the big dust storm on the first day:

I little self portrait action. To give you perspective, "the man" is about 40 feet tall and 70 feet in the air:

That little silhouette down in the left corner is my good friend Regis Chen who I pretty much forced him to join us this year. I think he had a good time.

By they way, they did have limited cell service this year and here's Regis checking in with Twitter in the middle of nowhere.

I decided to just take a break from technology that week and ended up going over 100 hours without internet, my iPhone, Twitter, Facebook, [ b ] School, etc... And while it was hard at first, there's enough going on out there to keep my entertained and distracted so I didn't miss it that much. There were several times I kept thinking to myself that I wanted to share some twit pics and vids, but it was good to be disconnected from the world for a few days. I'll thought I did come back to a plethora of emails and phone messages.

I'll be posting more of my art images and portraits of strangers very soon. Stay tuned. In the mean time, you can see more images from our crew at:

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