If you'd like to use my pictures in a commercial setting, drop me a line to discuss and I can give you full resolution pictures (marc<at>merlins.org).
If you'd like to say thanks with cash, please donate money to one of the many camps and art installations that are often out of pocket after burning man.

Summary:

I again tried to enjoy the moments and interactions more than bike every last street, but I still covered a lot of ground. I biked 261km/162 miles in 7 days, not a record, but again I tried to enjoy the moment more, so that's a win I think :)

This year, I had a much upgraded LED outfit with 37440 pixels/LEDs. If you're interested, I've written a full article about it, and the evolution of my light outfit over the years.

I also brought back 4096 neopixel matrix, but unfortunately, it was damaged by playa dust quite a bit last year, and pretty unreliable this year:

My RGBPanel P3 shirt has 64x96 pixels vs the 64x64 pixels on the neopixel matrix

sigh, I kept having to fix dead pixels

During the day, I was wearing my snowboarding gear :)

my night outfit was only good enough for night/sunrise/sunset (and I had to recharge its big battery packs)

The flight to BM was uneventful which is good (more pictures):

cool to see the DMV registration line from the sky

Anyway, let's get on with the pictures:

Black Rock City

After tying up the plane, we got greeted by the nice airport folks:

I was soon greeted at the airport by Paul, one of my friends and coworkers

The airport infrastructure has been improving every year:

they had a picture display, featuring some of my pictures

Another year, another Burning Man with its infrastructure:

Another Burning Man and Center Camp

This year, I probably found the most wildlife of any year:

we found a fearless bird

Of course, day panoramic views are fun, but night ones are nicer:

Random table I found in the middle of the playa at night:

Oh yeah, the alcaline dust, honestly what I like the least about BM. I bought my PM2.5 particle meter, and it topped out during a dust storm, saying "OMG, do not breathe this air". I had NOX95 filters and they were essential:

baseline is good

dust storm is terrible

Art

Night art was very nice (sadly my day art pictures were lost):

Paraluna was still very nice

this year's Centered was shorter than sonic runway, but still nice

you could still barely bike through it

Mega Mega was a fun art piece with a door code that you had to find. The code ended up being 8764, as shown on a truck in a video that wasn't always playing ok. The inside was hillarious:

this was the inside

The Folly was this year's deeper Playa Art of size:

lots of lines to get up, even on the first day

nice views from the top

I enjoyed the Xmas tree looking art:

Deep playa fence had lots of random small art:

Camps

Like last years, we stayed at Dustfish. I tried to improve our solar system for this year, and managed to make just enough to power all our electronics: my power hungry flashlights, and LED outfit, soldering iron, and laptop:

100W of panels across 3 panels was barely enough, especially with the playa dust

one meter shows the solar power flowing in, and bigger meter the poewr that flowed out the storage batteries

Dustfish had a cabaret show and musicals, including rent:

During the day, we biked around as many streets and camps as we can. So many, only a very few shown here:

one camp had rooms for loan with their own decors

nice, a camp to celebrate my now defunct favourite night club

fresh panties camp was a great idea

been there before, but what's not to love?

Circle J had a nice store I missed the previous years. Best store on the playa :)

My friend Tinic and his friends setup the excellent Duck Pond:

Thank you soft landing for the teahouse and the talks this year again:

Rick Doblin gave another talk on the status of MAPS

Thanks for what you do and all your efforts, Rick

Thank you to all the camps that were offering food in various ways:

this lost boat captain was asking for help

a nicely gave you yummy fish if you tried to help

lots of grilled cheese, a playa favourite

yummy meat in some camps

a Russian camp had lots of yummy Russian treats

pizza on the playa in the middle of the night, yum

More Camps at night:

its bigger brother

one camp had some very nice rooms to win for a night

Jennifer suggested we tried roller disco, which has been there forever, but I never tried, so we did:

Jennifer's backpack worked well at night

Black Rock Gladiators was rightfully upgraded from street F to Esplanade, good for them. Their announcers were fantastic:

Multiple camps had nice LED setups:

sadly, she was still working on the code at BM, and I didn't see this matrix runing later

duck pond still had their technically impressive massive RGBPanel array, similar to my shirt, but bigger

fun matrix

very cool LED cube

interesting design, which when rotating gives the one below

another nice rotating one, nice design

I enjoyed the LED Grand Piano again:

Another different Piano in the middle of the playa

Erotica Hypnotica had fun hypnosys show, what the video for details:

Illuminaughty had an LED meetup on wednesday night:

nice raver cube demo

One big highlight music-wise, was Dave Dresden playing great trance on the Root Society art car, and then B2B with Afik and Alivn on BAAAHS art car, with another great sound system. It was lovely being able to spend a sunny and then dusty afternoon with them (more on this page).

Root Society had a nice art car with great sound system

nice to have a picture with Dave Dresden

Then, we have the sound camps:

Root Society was in the Place of Opulent Temple this year

Slut Garden has powerful lasers this year

747 was back this year, stronger than ever:

People

We ran into my good friend Brian, running ESD coms:

Jennifer and I also got to try a one wheeler:

I missed some parades this year, but at least got the Billion Bunny March:

Night pictures:

Jennifer and I had a 64x64 RGBPanel backpack

Fire

The Lama Fire:

The Mega Cake had great fireworks:

Sympathetic Resonance:

The Folly:

that fire was dicey, and dropped a lot amber and flaming stuff into the crowd

looked pretty though

And there were many more, hard to catch them all:

Vehicles

this is where all the street signs have been

awesome vehicle, like every year

cute

Of course, it gets better at night:

Some of my coworkers did those very cool high tech surf boards. We went to visit their camp:

they have their own radio system to track the boards across the playa, nice

I was lucky enough to try one out, they are tricky to ride and make sharp turns with

they look great at night of course

Mayan Warrior was still a favourite, with more upgrades:

But there are more, like Pulpo Mecanico and BAAAAHS:

Fewer fancy bikes than in the earlier years, but I found this one:

Of course, like everything else, it gets more fun at night:

fancy job on this bike

Temple

The temple had a weird shape this year, I can't say I loved it, but here are a few pictures:

The Man

Like every year, the fine folks doing a big BBQ on the man, were back. Sadly, I got a throat infection and had to get some medical help and sleep, so I wasn't up all night to see the sunrise:

in the meantime I'll take a grilled cheese sandwich, thanks :)

While my burn wasn't an all nighter due to my infection and need for sleep, it was still a great burn, and I left the next day to get home and get some rest (as well as better air for my throat).

Conclusion

I hope you enjoyed this report. Feel free to say thanks to me by simply sharing it with your friends, and see you on the playa in the future (or you'll see me at night with my lights).

Tips

Thanks