Burning Man
Éric Bouvet
Exhausted (utterly) by a year spent traveling around difficult countries. Disappointed (slightly) by the small number of pictures published. Broke (as usual) as sales were pretty poor. Shattered (completely) by Rémi Ochlik’s death – yes, 2011 was a complicated year – so I decided to have a break, to stop covering conflicts for a while. Everyone had said that 2012 would be a year when nothing would go right, so I decided once more to go against the trend, to refuse to give in to the prevailing gloom and doom. I decided that it would be a cheerful, peaceful year.
After doing a trilogy on the “Rainbow Family” in Brazil, the United States and Slovakia, I was going to embark on the wild wonder of “Burning Man.”
I was going back to the United States, heading for the Nevada desert, with a short detour via San Francisco, the magical city where I’d love to live, but for just enough time to buy some gear.
With all the gear I needed, and a rented campervan complete with double bed, I hit the road to have some fun. There was no need for a GPS: from San Francisco on, there were dozens of vehicles weighed down with tents, bicycles, lounges, tarpaulins, suitcases, and ice-boxes, all forming a convoy. The road carried a veritable exodus of campervans, trucks and cars towing caravans and trailers transporting the famous mutant vehicles. Eight hours later there was the mother of all traffic jams, with six lanes of traffic stuck in the middle of the desert. I was there with around 60 000 others waiting to get through the entrance to this grand-scale party that defies description.
As soon as I got there, the “Man” swallowed me up; I was engulfed in the freedom, the party, the collective folly and ecstatic joy, with so much artistic expression, energy and wildness. In other words, I was definitely there and I was going to make the very most of it. Then a sandstorm hit, and didn’t ease for the next three days.
Preview
Too bad! I had taken the precaution of covering my gear in plastic freezer bags and taping it closed. The sand got in everywhere, and after a few hours, I couldn’t see anything. It was a real test to see how tough and sturdy my cameras were in real-life conditions. I now know what they’re made of. They can go out on rough terrain and come through with flying colors. They even ended up in the sand with me a few times when I fell off my bicycle. Yes, there in the wind, with almost zero visibility, you sometimes come across another vehicle; with a bit of luck it has only two wheels and is not a mutant vehicle done up as a 20-meter-long steel dinosaur.
To avoid getting lost, it was a matter of playing it by ear: there was always a platform blasting out sound somewhere, and with every type of music imaginable: reggae, electronic, disco, 1970s rock, and more. Somewhere in the middle of nowhere, there would be twenty or so people dancing, wearing goggles and masks or scarves, bopping away to the beat of the over-amplified sound system. At 5 o’clock in the morning, there were similar scenes in the “deep desert” with more than a thousand people still raging on, and waiting for sunrise. Anywhere, anytime, something crazy was always happening. Nighttime was out of this world, with mutant vehicles turning their lights on. It was fairyland gone wild! On the last evening, they burnt the “Man” – the 30 meter tall Man – surrounded by 60 000 people, inside a circle of hundreds of mutant vehicles with lights everywhere. It is impossible to describe that moment. I’ve rarely felt anything like it: all that energy, all shared together. Here you have to be part of it; that is one of the recurring themes. Quite often, other people give you a hot-dog or a pancake, or even a rum cocktail or some wine. And it’s always in the middle of nowhere, in the heat and the sand, but surrounded by people who come along, as I did, for a week of wild fun and good humor.
The works of art, some huge, 10, 20 or 30 meters, are also burned before everyone leaves. It’s self-abnegation – no place for an ego here – which is a nice change from the world we live in. Of course, not everything is perfect. For example, I had to show my photos to the organizers for approval. Some pictures, such as shots of people naked, did not get through their censorship, unless I had the consent of the persons concerned. But as my iPhone with all my notes was stolen on the way back, none of the pictures will ever be published; that is, unless I go back next year and see the same people. And there’s a good chance of that happening. I want to experience that fire burning again!
Éric Bouvet
