Burning Man 2008 Panoramas

The year of the dust-dune playa. Also visit the regular photos of 2008.

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This is a 360 degree shot while the Temple is burning. It shows the city in a circle around the temple, and since I'm somewhat deep in the crowd, you also see the crowd behind me and their faces as they watch the burn. Some are crying, some are slack-jawed. You can also see that it's the coldest night we had on the playa.

This is a series of one-second exposures at f/4.5. This means people who moved will be blurry. Interestingly, many people are not blurry, showing just how still the burn made them. It also means the depth of field is more limited, so the image is not sharp at all distances. But I think this will be one of my most remarkable images for 2008.

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The grand view of the entire city, right at the moment of sunset on Wednesday, from the towers of Space Virgins camp at 6:45 and Esplanade. I had intended to take another later in the week, but Friday had a hazy afternoon and Saturday was a white-out most of the day.

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We stayed up to sunrise after the burn, and I climbed the tower of Babel in the outer playa to shoot the entire curve of the city with the sun behind me.

This image, over 90,000 pixels wide, is one of the longest and largest panoramas I have made, in fact my software could not handle it so I had to build it in pieces. As a nice touch, the Mutopia fired off a burst as I was ending the pano, so I included that.

It's a shame that the tower was so far out. It would have provided the best vantage yet for a panorama of the city. Some questioned the aesthetic of the tower -- it was pure industrial -- but the real aesthetic it provided was a spectacular view.

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The city at night, viewed from the top of the Ziggurat at 2:30. I have not shot a good night pano for several years because they require a very stable high platform. Most of BRC's towers are scaffold and not stable enough if other people get on them while shooting. One sway and you get a blurry shot, ruining the pano.

I think that Black Rock City is in many ways at its most amazing at night, and it is a shame this is so hard to capture.

In this shot you can see Cirque du Flambe closing out their run with fireworks, Gigsville's giant red man, and my ribbed art car in the foreground.

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The Temple, this year named Basura Sagrada, has become a tradition. People cover its walls with rememberances, and sunday night it burns in solemnity. Here's a shot of it at sunset.

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The same sunset view as the entire city above from Space Virgins, but a wider angle showing more of the playa close to the tower.

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