Random Encounters on the Playa

One week has past and I'm still nostalgic for Burning Man. Here's the final installment of more of my favorite photos from Black Rock City 2005. (You can find the full gallery at http://photos.weschan.com.)


Words of wisdom tacked onto the wall at the Shinto Temple.


Romer & Brooks whacking each other with foam bats in the Thunderdome (don't ask).


My friend Dan on the playa, ringing the Virgin bell signifying that it's his first Burning Man ever.


Jeremy Mungle (L) making a phone call (on a satellite phone) while Roxana Smith makes sno-cones for everyone at the "It's Your Birthday" theme camp.


Friends of mine having a bit too much fun on a random trampoline. (There are tons of trampolines everywhere in Black Rock City.)


James Abele juggling during a dance party at the House of Lotus camp.


In what was probably the most bizzare spectacle ever, GI-JOE figurines march hundreds of plastic barbies into an oven at the Barbie Death Camp & Wine Bistro art display.


Adam admiring Alton Parker's art installation in the middle of the playa.


Ring charms spin in the desert wind.


A rememberence for a passed-away loved one at the Shinto Temple.


One of the coolest costumes ever!


The front of the lamplighter procession, which happens every day at sunset.

Burning Man on Fire!

Fire Sculptures are perhaps one of the coolest nighttime things that you'll find on the playa at Burning Man. Here are some of my favorite fire sculptures from this year.


Random gathering around fire-spitting horns.


Black Rock Hoedown around the fire-spitting horns. The Space Cowboys unimog showed up at the horns and for the entire night, pumped out dance tunes as several hundred people partied around some awesome fireballs.


The fire pendulum: flames from 4 jets would propel this pendulum to spin around as hundreds of people stared in awe.


The fire pendulum in action.


Green flames from the chimney of a fire sculpture.


Fire spitting out an art installation on the playa.


Not quite a fire sculpture but equally as cool: the charred remains of the man during the ritual burning on Saturday night.

Picture Perfect Playa Wedding

Lots of people get married every year at Burning Man. I was lucky enough to stumble onto one such wedding, and acted as impromptu wedding photographer. I have no idea who the lucky couple are.



I thought the wedding offciator in the gold outfit was a nice touch, as well as the bunnies acting as the groomsmen and bridesmaid. (Note that some bunnies have beards).

On that note did you know that in the state of California you marry ONE couple for a day even if you're not clergy or a judge? All you need to do is to be deputized to perform the ceremony. (I may do this for next year's burning man!)



My favorite part of the wedding: when the gold dude said "you may kiss the bride!"



Afterwards, the wedding procession walked down the playa with everyone cheering behind them.



Ending a picture-perfect wedding, the bride and groom hop on the wedding art car to be pushed off by a flock of bunnies into the sunset.



Want more 2005 Burning Man Photos? Get them at http://photos.weschan.com

Parade of Burning Man Art Cars

One of my favorite things to do at Burning Man is to chase after the hundreds of art cars on the playa and take photos of them. There were some awesome ones this year.


A robotic dinosaur trying to actually "walk" across the playa. This was one of the more complicated art cars I've seen on the playa; there was a person riding on the back of the dinosaur controlling the various motors to get the art car to "walk."


The Nekobasu (or CatBus), from My Neighbor Totoro.


The cup cakes, back this year in force!


Eyeballs at night.


Circular saw car slicing thru the playa at night.


Driving a couch on the playa.


Snow-cone serving locomotive stopped on the playa for an impromptu boom-boom dance party.


The Swan, an origami inspired artcar by Adam Smith and team.


Middle eastern palace-inspired car.


Glow-in-the-dark Pac Man!


"Sailing" down the playa.


Dragon Limo

You can find more 2005 Burning Man art car photos at http://photos.weschan.com.

Burn the Man!

At my last night at Burning Man this past week, 35,000 people gathered around "man" at Burning Man to watch it burn down. This year, I was lucky enough to have a front row seat for the huge ten minute fireworks-laden bonfire.



Before the "man" exploded, nearly all of the fire dancers in the US converged upon the playa to give us a spectacular show of light and sound.





Then the fireworks went off on the "man."



I had a hard time getting some good photos this year because the fireworks appeared to light the man up prematurely. The man instantly erupted into a gigantic fireball. There was smoke everywhere and many of the fireworks exploded on the ground rather than up in the air.



Still some of the fireworks made it up above the smoke and chaos.



At some point, the smoke cleared away and you could see that the man had caught on fire.



At this point, everyone started cheering and yelling "burn the man." After about 5 minutes, the structure holding the "man" collasped and the man came tumbling down.



Once the man fell, everyone started rushing into the center. The chaos has begun. Several thousand people began running around the corspe of the man, jumping up and down as if their favorite team had won the Superbowl.





I made my way to the center and got some spectacular photos of the charred remains of the man, still burning after its very public collaspe.



It was so hot in there, and combined with the fact that there were still thousands of people trying to push their way into the center, my camera nearly melted. Thank god I was wearing a fire & heat resistant flight suit.



I can't wait to next year's burn.

Back from Black Rock City

I'm back from the playa, still covered in several layers of dust after spending four days at Buring Man. Trying to clean all the dust off of myself and my crap will be a huge pain.

I've taken over 2000 photos, and still need to go through them all. In the next several days, I'll be posting many of my favorites here, but in the meantime, for some really awesome photos, you can visit my burning man gallery.

One of my favorite experiences this year was seeing these gigantic smoke rings erupt from out of nowhere on the playa. I'd be riding along while the sun was setting, and these black smoke donuts would rise up from afar. It was an amazing sight.



After biking around some more, I found a truck towing a fire contraption that was roaming around the playa creating these huge smoke rings.



Every five minutes or so, someone would pour a special mixture of fuel into the fire contraption.



The contraption would ignite and create a huge fireball, which would in turn create this big blob of black smoke.



After about a minute, the smoke would expand out and create these really big, really awesome smoke rings.



Three words to describe what I saw: absoultely f*!king incredible.