This was my third trip to Burning Man, but it was my first taking anything except for a point and shoot camera. It was also my first time with a toddler. These both made it quite a different Burn than my prior experiences but, even different it was still Burning Man and still awesome.
The biggest difference having a toddler along made was that I spent a lot more time out and about during the daytime than I did at night. If you haven't been to Burning Man before, day/night are almost two separate worlds joined by a common theme. We did get a couple of late nights as a Family, starting with a Kidsville Art Car tour of the deep Playa for kids and their families. My little dude rallied and made it almost to the end before crashing just as the tour rolled back into Kidsville. It was awesome being in an environment where the first answer for him was yes, instead of no. He pretty much could climb and play on anything he wanted, and there were spaces where we could just let him run and see where he led without having to worry too much. I think he really got a lot out of it as well, all the early childhood stuff I read to prepare for being a dad said that the best thing you can do for a child's developement is put them into an environment with lots of stimulation and variation. Mission accomplished, and he came away with all sorts of new words, like "art car, fireworks, hopper (trampolines- which he loved)" and really seemed to open up.
Ok, enough gushing fatherhood- what about bringing my camera and shooting? For those of you who aren't familiar, Burning Man is both wonderful and dangerous for photographers. It is a wonderful and amazing place that offers more fantast shots in a minute than most shooters would otherwise see in years. On the on other hand, the fine, pervasive alkali dust gets in everything no matter how much you try to protect your gear, and has quite a reputation for gear destruction.
I did a lot of research beforehand, and the consensus seemed to be that unless you were willing to put your camera into a full underwater housing and not take it out for a week, you just had to accept that you were probably going to need to spring for (or if you were so technically inclined- spend the time) after the event to do a sensor cleaning and a full cleanout of the body and lenses you used. There is lots of advice floating around about putting gaffers tape over card slots, battery compartments, etc and other practical steps such as not changing lenses at all, or if you have to change, doing it inside an enclosed space, and even using prime lenses vice zooms to keep the zoom action from sucking in the dust. Ultimately, I chose to go with a mid-range set of precautions. I went with the D4, since it is supposed to be highly weather sealed and very resilient. (I also had a paying shoot right after I was supposed to get back that I was going to use the D800 on, so if one camera had to go into the shop for cleaning it was better it be the D4) The D4 also is better in the dark and I definitely wanted to do lots of night time shooting. I didn't do any extra taping, but I did decide to stick with a single lens, my 24-70mm, and not do any lens changes on playa. I also made sure I had large enough memory cards to shoot all week and not have to change out or open anything except to swap batteries.
The next issue I had was how to carry the camera. I like my Carry Speed strap, but I knew I was going to be doing a lot of climbing, running around being silly , and biking everywhere all week. With all that, having the camera swinging around on a strap was going to suck. I had been thinking about getting a SpiderPro belt system for a while, and this seemed like the perfect time to make that happen. I also wanted to make sure I had a more robust protection plan for when the dust got bad, so instead of going with the full spider pro belt system, I got the spider clip, which I put on a Think Tank ProSpeed Belt (with the spiderpro adapter kit) and also added a Think Tank Digital Holster 40V2 bag on my off hip.
I will write a full review of this setup and these pieces of gear later, but I wound up very happy with this setup. The camera spent most of the Burn in the clip on my hip, ready to draw and shoot almost instantly. I was even able to draw, shoot and return one handed while riding the captain's seat in a tandem bike / sidecar combo we used to roll around as a family. (even when trying to chase down said family while the little dragon ran wild)
When I wanted a little more security for the camera or I knew I wasn't going to be shooting for a bit, it went into the bag and got sealed up.
So how did the camera do? Well, I have to start with a disclaimer- with the epic rains Monday morning to hold the dust down, this was a very mild year, I think the least dusty of the three Burns I have attended. The dust really didn't even start blowing until Thursday, and even then it was mostly localized to the middle of the clock face, once you got into the side streets, at least on the 6-10pm side, the dust quickly subsided for all but a couple of hours, so my setup never really got much stress testing, even though I did pull the camera out and get some shots during the worst of the dust, because I thought they were worth it. One other thing I learned was that I had been limiting Excalibur by at least a full stop. Based on some test shots I took to mess around while researching for my book, I decided I was being conservative and could easily shoot up to ISO 25,600 with noise reduction afterwards. There is still some noise, but damn, I can shoot confidently at ISO 25,600! WOOHOO! And I did, a lot, when I made it out at night.
Gear wise, in the aftermath, everything survived well. There was some obvious dust covering the camera, and the holster bag.
Going through the images, I did see occasional dust spots, but they were gone in subsequent images, so the self cleaning sensor function on the camera seems to have done its' job well. When I got home, I blew off the exterior of the camera with a low pressure fan, then wiped down all the camera and lens exterior surfaces off with cleaning wipes and cleaned the lens and U/V filter off with a puffer brush and lens cloth. Then I took the lens off, and was pleasantly surprised to find almost no dust visible inside the camera or the rear element of the lens. In the final analysis the D4 and the 24-70 came through with flying colors, emerging from the dust unscathed...... almost. The only casualty was a crack on the upper LCD display, that I think happened when I was crawling through a very narrow tunnel inside the Embrace art sculpture. I think the crack may only be on the plastic cover I have on the LCD (this wasn't for BM, I put covers on both LCDs on all my cameras just as a general precaution, like always having the UV filter on my lenses) but since the screen still works fine, I haven't bothered to try and remove the cover and check, since it is adhesive enough to make any deeper cracking worse while pulling it off.
What about the shooting? Well, it was both easy and hard. Easy in that there were wonderful shots everywhere, hard for the same reason. I had to remind myself that photography was just a side line, my main purpose was to experience the Burn with my family and friends, most of the rest of who were experiencing their virgin burn. (not that you would have been able to tell that from the uber-yurt palaces they constructed....) It was also difficult because, starting even before my first Burn, I have spent years looking at awesome images from Burning Man, taken by some really amazing shooters, and I had the feeling that mine wouldn't hold up against that standard. In fact, I felt like for most of the week I was mostly just shooting standard snapshots instead of trying to set up and compose great images. I didn't have a theme, I didn't have experience shooting the Burn, and to make it worse, the only times I really had to go out on dedicated photo safaris were during the little Dragon's nap time... ie in the middle of the afternoon and the worst possible light of the day. (they say the best time to shoot is Dawn, but for those of you who know me, you know that wasn't likely to happen... even when I wanted to get up to see the embrace burn) Although, I have to say, the light was pretty damn awesome at sunset as well.
I was also hampered by my decision to stick with one lens, that meant I wasn't always able to get the composition I wanted from where I was, and wasn't always given the chance to zoom with my feet before the shot went away. I also missed one shot that I really wanted because I was too short. I really wanted to get a shot of the Man framed by the two lovers of the Embrace, maybe even with a sunset in the background, but I needed to be taller to get that one. By which I mean I would have had to get a scissor lift truck and around 50feet of elevation, which is probably why I haven't seen that shot on anyone else's portfolio yet either.
Ultimately, I decided I didn't have the time to try and get great shots of the art, that would have taken too much time away from my family, so I chose to focus on trying to capture the people around me, and get good portraits of my fellow Burners. I think I managed to get a few that transcended the mere snapshop level, and captured a bit of the soul of the Burn.
You can see the rest of those in my "US in the dUSt" series.
I did manage to get a couple that I think were worthy of the Man, the Temple, and the Embrace.
You can see all my shots of the various art works I managed to get to here.
At some point, I think around Wednesday afternoon, I figured out I had seen enough mirrored shades to want to do something with them, so I came up with the idea of "Reflections of home," and started trying to get good reflected images in mostly mirror shades, but also any good mirror or reflective surface I could find.
You can see the rest of "Reflections of Home," here.
So those became my two driving artistic themes for the rest of the week. I also put the camera on a tripod and did some long exposures on Burn Night, as well as some experiments with light painting back at our campsite.
So, ultimately, although I don't think my work will wind up being compared to the greats, I did get a lot of shots I was happy with, and a collection of decent portraits to gift to fellow burners. I also got a lot of awesome shots of both my close and extended family. I found a new gear carry system that I totally love and didn't have any major gear issues, damage or loss. I've already been able to give at least one good image to someone who lost her own camera on the Playa and otherwise would have had no images of her burn, so all in all, it was a great experience and I can't wait until I get back home again. Until then, you can see all my shots on my web galleries!
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