“Trying to explain Burning Man to someone who has never been is like trying to explain the color red to a blind man.”

I went to Burning Man with an open mind. I was intent on spending time with my close friends, and to enjoy the experience fully as a participant. It was so exhilarating on an emotional and visceral level that taking it all in was completely overwhelming.

I didn’t go to the desert to make a photo essay or to “cover” Burning Man. To stand back and shoot the seminal moments of the event at dusk, dawn, and night for eight days requires putting on a journalists hat and staying the observer, something I had no interest in doing. Despite the endless, and I do mean endless, opportunity for making amazing images, I took my camera out very sparingly.

Burning Man is an event that embraces gift giving in place of monetary exchange. Hence, many of the following photos are of friends I made there, and they are intended as a gift to them instead of a purely journalistic or photographic pursuit.

If you are looking for complete coverage, look to the work by the San Francisco Chronicle and elsewhere. I hope you enjoy these snaps I took at Burning Man. More importantly, you need to be planning on going next year.