I've been documenting Burning Man for the past nine years. It is without doubt one of the world's hippest and most mind-blowing gatherings. The event is a week-long celebration of free-form creativity and radical self- expression held each summer in Nevada's Black Rock Desert. Burning Man is hard to describe. It's not quite an art festival, not quite a desert rave, and not quite a social experiment — but something of all three. But why bother trying to describe it when the photos speak for themselves?
Burning Man Photography
I’m back from an enchanting week at Burning Man 2012. It was a great year for photography, despite several days of gusty winds, dust storms, and even rain. The light on the playa seemed to be constantly shifting and changing during the week of the event, offering up breathtaking perspectives of the Black Rock Desert I had never seen in almost a decade of attending Burning Man. This time out I photographed on assignment for Rolling Stone. In addition to my set of 100 photos from 2012, as well as a mini-set devoted to this year's amazing art cars, you'll find three slideshows on www.rollingstone.com:
- Burning Man 2012: Magic Mushrooms, Nude Dancers, Wild Infernos and More
- More Scenes from Burning Man 2012
- Faces of Burning Man 2012
Burning Man felt massive in 2011, from the huge crowds to the sheer size of Black Rock City—which was scaled up and was in fact so big that there were large parts of it I never got to see. There were many impressive art installations, wacky art cars, and mindblowing performances in 2011, but I found myself mostly drawn to the beautiful and creative people of Black Rock City. This is reflected in the sizable number of portraits in this set. My images from 2011 were perhaps my most widely viewed and published. Thanks to social media, the set went viral and generated almost a million unique visitors in the weeks immediately after the event. It was perhaps more than they deserved, but it reflects the growing significance of Burning Man as a cultural phenomenon.
2010 marked the 24th anniversary of Burning Man, and it was bigger than ever— attendance shot up to a record 51,000 people. Many participants remember it as the year of Bliss Dance, Megatropolis (left) and the Temple of Flux. Personally, I think back to a freak thunderstorm on Monday afternoon, followed by a full five days of clear skies (cloudless skies, as any photographer will tell you, don't make for especially interesting images). It was also a year of fabulous weddings and an unforgettable silent white procession. But the highlight for me was being hoisted up in a 40-foot boom lift on the night of the burn and looking down on a sea of 50,000 people as the man exploded in flames.
2009 was my sixth year out and the first on the documentation team — Burning Man's cadre of "official" photographers. It was a wonderful and amazing week, wind and dust notwithstanding. Attendance was down by over ten percent — a first in the festival’s 23-year history. It made for a smaller and somewhat more intimate event. There was also a sense among many I spoke with that the vibe was more low-key. That said, much of the art was world class, the performances first-rate, the outlandish fashions and silly costumes unforgettable, and the people of Black Rock City, well, more beautiful than ever. One of the most memorable moments for me was going up in a private plane just after sunrise one morning and surveying Black Rock City from 10,000 feet. Breathtaking, and more than a little surreal!
My time at Burning Man 2008 lasted just four and a half days. While I got out as much as I could, staying out late every night and rising before dawn each morning, I came home with a relatively limited number of photos. It was a challenge to pull together 100 quality images. I considered posting a shortened set, but finally decided to go for the usual 100. It seemed like a good number and it followed what has become something of an annual ritual for me. Needless to say, there are some images that don't stand out on their own but that do help tell a story, or convey the distinctive spirit of the event. And that, after all, is the point. The images work best when they capture the raw energy, the bawdy humor, the carefree sexuality, the bad taste, and above all, the sheer outrageous good fun of it all.
The theme of Burning Man 2007 was the "Green Man." It's perhaps best remembered as the year the man burned five days ahead of schedule. I still regard it as one of the best years ever from the standpoint of photography. The art was massive and spectacular, the people endlessly beautiful and creative, and thanks to a rare tropical storm in the south, the skies were shifting, unpredictable, and perfect for photography. One day we had a sprinkling of rain followed by a double rainbow that people still speak radiantly about to this day. I shot about 1,700 photos in 2007. Some of them were lost. But there was enough for a photoessay, one that offered at least a small glimpe of the extraordinary art, the beautiful faces, and the brilliant colors of Black Rock City.
In 2006, I returned to Burning Man with less of the frenzied enthusiasm and outlandish expectations of the year before. The goal, I decided, was simply to capture something of the beauty, the creativity, the exuberance and what I took to be the deeper personal significance of Burning Man. I abandoned the idea of capturing the event in any objective sense, favoring instead a more personal perspective, one more closely aligned with fine art photography than photojournalism. It was also the year I hit on a workable two-camera strategy for photographing the event, one that was flexible, relatively light, and spared me from having to make constant lens changes in a dusty and harsh environment. In retrospect, I consider it one my best years at Burning Man.
The original plan in 2005 was to create a photoessay — a journalistic piece combining images and text. My impulse was to try, in some small way, to make sense of the phenomenon known as Burning Man. I only realized afterward how impossible that would be. I came home with about 1,500 photos and a whole notebook full of amazing quotes and stories. But mostly I returned with a sense of utter bewilderment. What to do with all the material? Looking over the photos, I decided that captions were probably extraneous. The best approach would be to simply let the images speak for themselves. As we know, no words can properly convey the experience of Burning Man to someone who has never been to the event. And for someone who has, words are hardly necessary. It was a tough decision because it meant cutting many amazing stories, brilliant quotes, and funny anecdotes. I selected 100 images, and left it at that. The format seemed to resonate, and it's one I've kept to ever since.
It was my first time at Burning Man and I arrived midweek with no plans to take any pictures, write any articles, or otherwise document the festivities. I was there simply to have a good time (and to fulfill a longstanding promise to my partner, who had attended some years earlier and begged me to go). All I had was a 3-megapixel point-and-shoot camera (which barely survived the dust and harsh conditions of the playa). I have a sentimental attachment to some of the images from 2004 — it was, after all, one of the single best weeks of my life! — but I wouldn't put any of them in the category of good photography.
- Is It an Art Festival, a Desert Rave, or a Visionary Social Experiment? The Answer is Yes
- Rolling Stone — Burning Man 2012: Magic Mushrooms, Nude Dancers, Wild Infernos and More
- Visual News — Scott London Captures the Magic of Burning Man
- It's Nice That — Scott London's Burning Man Photography
- File Magazine — A Collection of Unexpected Photography
- Folie Douce Magazine — "Le Burning Man, C'est Hot"
- Common Ground Magazine — A Burning Man '09 Retrospective
- Creative Holly — Favorite Shades of Burning Man
- Common Ground Magazine — Cover of the Summer 2010 issue
- Art in an Ephemeral Age — An Exhibit at the Art Festival at Hay
- Bringing Back the Fire — An Exhibition in Santa Rosa, California
- The View — Best Places to Pop the Question
- 'Voyage in Utopia' Slideshow
- More Burning Man Photography
