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Burning Man

and some adventures along the way

By Ellie Pritts

September 17^th, 2015

Roadtrip!

So, I didn’t know I was going to Burning Man until maybe a week before it started (which was probably for the best.) I had been in L.A for a family wedding and decided to just road trip it from there. We took the scenic route, and it was awesome.

Ghost Towns Galore

Along the way to Nevada, we came across what appeared to be a former “ghost town” attraction that had since been abandoned. A ghost ghost town. It’s like ghost town inception. I wandered around and determined that many of the buildings were legitimately very old, but that more recently someone had decorated them with goofy antiques and signs which were now gathering their own coat of dust.

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Hot Springs are cool

Until this trip, I had never even seen a natural hot spring before. After realizing we were in a bonafide hot spring metropolis we decided we had to explore at least one. It was amazing and super surreal. The first one I went into (Keough Hot Springs) was particularly cool. It was like an ordinary pond except very clear and the water was quite warm. It was kind of trippy! We also checked out HillTop Hot Springs, which was very beautiful.

Black rock city

It was 4 a.m by the time we finally made it into the camping area of Burning Man. I was deliriously tired and still had no real concept of where I was and how massive Burning Man is. It wouldn’t really hit me for another day or so.

Burning man gets a lot of sh*T

I work music festivals for a living, more or less. In my experience there is no event that people seem more interested and opinionated about than Burning Man. And yes I know true burners despise categorizing Burning Man as a festival, sorry guys.

The truth is, I was not 100% looking forward to this experience. Over the years my opinions on Burning Man have shifted, despite me never having attended. So while I entered with an open mind and optimism, it was not without effort on my part and I truly did not know how the week would end up, which was kind of terrifying.

D-u-s-t

My first day of Burning Man was great. In fact the whole trip was basically great. I’d talked to countless people about what to expect and I’d say the number one thing I just did not comprehend until I arrived was the dust. The dust is unlike anything else I’ve ever experienced. It gets everywhere. It becomes part of you (and anything you hold dear.)

desert paradise

It didn’t take very long for me to realize that the vast majority of vitriol directed at Burning Man is either grossly exaggerated or just plain untrue. The truth is there were some 70,000 people there, which means that any particular person can have a vastly different experience from another. Were there rich and famous people in luxurious RVs? I’m positive there were. Did I ever notice them? Not once! Maybe it was the insane dust storms and cold fronts this year, but even Kim Kardashian would have probably gone unnoticed at Burning Man. We’re all absolutely covered in dust, face masks, layers of costumes, jackets and LED lights. Everyone is more or less unrecognizable.

Anonymous club

I enjoyed the anonymity I found at Burning Man. It’s a truly accepting environment where basically anything goes, and it’s genuinely refreshing. I found myself wondering more than once why this couldn’t be “real life”.

Burn baby, burn

As a photographer, I found Burning Man to be more or less heaven. Yes, my sensor was a wreck and one of my cameras stopped working entirely after day one. But it was worth it!

If you’ve been following me for a bit you know that I was in the market for a new camera. I finally bought at Sony a7! In a perfect world I would have the a7RII (or a Leica!) but the a7 is just fine for now. And I truly put it to the test at Burning Man. It worked wonderfully! I used a Canon 16-35 mm lens and Metabones adapter. The combination was killer.

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constructive criticism

A whole lot of people have asked me what I thought of Burning Man now that I finally went. I can’t stress enough that it’s definitely what you make of it. Burning Man isn’t inherently fun, you definitely need to get out there and make a good time for yourself however you see fit. There are camps for every lifestyle. You can basically be anyone you want to be the whole time. But it starts with you, as corny as that sounds.

This leads me to my only real criticism of the event: its size. In my opinion, there were just too many people. The ideas, ideals and general vibe of Burning Man would be much better suited for a smaller group of people. I am naturally quite introverted so I found it especially challenging to truly connect with the community on account of the size. Burning Man is larger than many American towns, and we’re all only there for 10 days. It is very overwhelming.

Several Burning Man people have responded to my thoughts on this by encouraging me to check out regional burns because they are much smaller. I will definitely make a point of this and hopefully it’s better suited for someone like me!

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Burning Man 2016?

The real question is, will I go again?

Yes! I definitely want to go next year. Now that I know what to expect, I think I can get a lot more out of it next year. I’m already excited about it. I hope to see some familiar faces there!

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