I think for the most part that Olivier is right. The staus quo of photography at Burning Man is outdated and in some cases doesn’t feel in line with our espoused values, particularly of free expression. This is something that’s happening not just at Burning Man but in society in general. The democratization of the message. Thanks to smaller and smaller cameras and websites like YouTube anyone anywhere can create a record and post it for the world to see. Its incredibly easy.

There is no longer any such thing as “personal use” – not since YouTube, flickr and facebook. Now we are all broadcasters. There is no way to predict the next viral video. Personally I think this is a great thing. Finally we can begin to have a dialogue between thousands, millions of people instead of everything being shunted through monolithic news organizations or the established lines of the art world. Ultimately this is good for art and community, but with the good comes the bad. For every great piece of art or beautiful moment unveiled there will also be some embarrassing skeletons or dirty laundry. That’s the Girls Gone Wild guys.

What I find distressing is that in an effort to control and limit the unsavory and embarrassing we end up also blocking some of the most committed and creative among us. As Olivier said its the perceived professionals that get the most obstacles thrown in their way by these policies when ironically its the professionals who can invest the time, knowledge, resources and creativity to capturing unique and inspiring visions of what BM is all about.

All this being said I do understand the problems with cameras at Burning Man and regional events. There’s definitely a distancing and chilling effect that can (but doesn’t necessarily) happen when a camera enters into the equation. We’ve all seen someone shy away or shut down in front of a camera, fear that what might happen next will be remembered and passed on shutting down the feelings of being free in the moment. Similarly many of us who’ve stood behind those cameras have felt distant, detached, unable to touch or engage with what’s going on just a few feet in front of us.

These are problems. Yet they need not be.

I have also had moments where the presence of a camera has brought forth the inner actor, an invigoration, a desire to be seen and to share with others. Making silly faces or performing for the camera are great ways to turn this relationship around. Similarly the photographer doesn’t need to be detached from a situation in order to get great shots. Indeed I think some of the best shots come from when the photographer really engages and gets involved in events as they unfold. If this interaction can be fostered then the chilling and distancing have no grip on the interaction.

I rarely shoot footage at Burning Man. I did a documentary one year and that was enough. I prefer to be immersed in the moment and not be worrying about f-stops, battery levels, composition or how much dust is getting into my lenses. When I do I often feel a distance from other participants. I think photographers/videographers and other participants need to both put some effort into bridging this gap because its the only way we’re going to effectively deal with this complex issue. BMOrg can try to keep cameras out, but increasingly that will prove impossible.

This is a cultural issue, not a policy issue, let us resolve it in the culture. We came to the desert to get away from rules, not to write a whole bunch of new ones.

As for selling images/video/audio captured at BM, well that’s a whole other can of worms…

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I must say the videos and photos on the net played an important part in getting my wife and I to attend last year. We can’t be there this year and we are a bit depressed about that but we look froward the images and videos that will be posted after this year. They will have a different meaning to us than for those who haven’t been there. I hope we don’t become another of the one time attendees.

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If you didn’t allow corporate media into the event, you would be freed from doing these rigorous checks, you could spend your time on more important community work. Let people photograph, and film whatever they want, they’re already doing it anyways. There’s 1000′s of videos on youtube about Burning Man, everyone is taking a stab at showing their version of Burning Man, for everyone to enjoy.

If you still are trying to limit nudity, it’s also all over the internet, just go on flickr, there are 100′s of pictures of naked women there, for everyone to see… so even this is failing.

Also as I pointed out, the french mega TV station M6 got denied access to the event, but they still came, they film everything they wanted, they made a 30 minutes piece, that’s basically showing how easy it is to get laid at Burning Man, it was broadcasted on the air for millions of viewers to see, they put all the commercial ads they needed to cash in on that broadcast, and they will never have a problem from the LLC, because it’s in another country and the LLC will not be able to enforce their rules there. Plus it’s too late. That really means that anyone can do it, and publish it without feeling threatened.

Here’s the link to the M6 piece, it’s all in french:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2v4gw_burning-man-zone-interdite-delire-e_music

So let’s ban corporate media from Burning Man, and let the community speak!

One of the first thing that I got from Burning Man was that it was about self-expression. Let your inner artist come out, no matter what others will think about what you do. I’ve always been behind such a philosophy, ART should be not only for all to enjoy, but also for all to create. And that should be true with photography as well.

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It’s NOT about spreading the values of Burning Man, which you can’t really do unless you go to Burning Man for a while, and start to adhere to the ethos of the community.

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The real problem is the tight limitation on “professional” camera use. On how we can use our images! The LLC allows corporate media when they explicitly say they don’t engage in commercial activities, it’s a basic violation of their 10 principles. Ultimately I don’t even have a problem with commercial coverage of the event, I just want to point out the hypocrisy here. The idea is that commercial coverage is free publicity, which they claim they don’t engage in, and that publicity is needed to keep the crowds coming to the event. As I have said, 1/2 of the people who go to Burning Man only ever go ONCE! That’s it. A lot of that new crowd probably heard about BM from those news sources, and the hype they create about the event. They will not stop commercial media for this very reason. It’s about spreading the values of Burning Man, which you can’t really do unless you go to Burning Man for a while, and start to adhere to the ethos of the community. Watching a TV report on the event, no matter what they say is only going to reinforce whatever ideas you already have about life really.

The LLC sells tshirts on their “Marketplace” http://marketplace.burningman.com/catalog.php, they sell videos, they even have gift certificates. Isn’t that commodification?? So they can do it, but no one else can? Who are they to tell us what we do? They ask the community to send their submissions about their business that are burner-friendly, and they post it (advertise it!) on their website and their giant mailing list. A lot of those businesses don’t even engage in sustainable practices, and then when a photographer wants to sell his art, it has to go through “rigorous” (as Andie says) checks of the validity of your request, and then they have an all-powerful veto on whatever comes out of your artistic point of view, and it is stamped worth of distribution, you still have to pay a %10 tax! No one from these businesses is asked to pay a 10% tax, why not?

It’s simply unfair to make photographers go through this kind of treatment when everyone else seem to get an easy ride. In their “resource edition”, the LLC claims to
that they’re not against commerce, they’re just against commodification, well i’m sorry but i’m starting to feel that these words are used whenever they’re convenient, they sound good in the right place.

Why should photographers have to go through this, when all they’re doing is participating in the production of artistic content. And if they want to sell their art, let the community be the judge!! If they don’t want to buy it, they won’t. No photographers is going to make $50,000/year out of their work from Burning Man. $50,000 is the average salary the LLC pays to its employees. And if they did, why would it be a problem.

Again in that resource issue, the LLC claims that they prefer small-scale businesses, as opposed to giant corporations, and I very much understand that and support it too! I also support the idea that all photographers, that are NOT coming out of the corporate media should be freely allowed to sell their work to the community. All they’re doing is participating in the small-scale economy that the LLC supports, and what they’re selling is ART.

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So what about me, the non professional with a nice camera? I want to take pictures and share them with my friends. I want to document this special event and what I saw and experienced. There are too many events from the past that never got documented, memories were lost and it’s been forgotten. I’ll be damed if i’m going to let a bunch of idealists prevent me from capturing this event. And you know, if my photos are any good I’d like to put them in the local art show and maybe even sell them.

The vast majority of us are respectful and don’t take the picture that might be embarrassing to someone, at least we didn’t think it would be. We also hope that anyone in the sight line might say something to us. Again in the majority of cases we will respect that. Yes there are those who will not respect that but it’s never correct to punish everyone for the wrongs of one.

There is also a technological issue about to pounce on all of society. In the very near future everyone will have the ability to record, in high definition, their entire day, using nothing more intrusive than a pair of glasses or belt. Setting the parameters of polite responsibility for using this power needs to be done now. It can’t be stopped. Just like the prohibition of alcohol didn’t do anything more that establish organized crime. Prohibition of photography will only promote the kind of up-skirt photo nonsense you want to prevent.

I guess I didn’t offer any solutions but these are my concerns and fears so keep talking maybe we will come up with a reasonable solution that most can live with.

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And really I think it’s beyond the point. My point is that these folks produced news pieces for their bottom line, maybe without the real interest in the Burning Man story and values. And yes they might say in their piece things like “Burning Man is creating community opposed to consumerism, people who care about each other”, but one liners are only there to please you the Media Team. In the end the eye-candy visuals and shallow representation of the community don’t serve the purpose of telling the real story of the event. I think the most it does is preach to the choir, and re-inforce to others ideas that BM is just a drug festival or whatever they want to think about it. The ideas of the need to recreate community, inspire the artists inside of you, not always think in terms of commercial/business terms, or recreate economies of human scale are often missing the depth in the corporate portraits, or even missing at all, to carry the message appropriately.

BM ORG doesn’t have an interest in growth, but if there were only 5,000 people, BM wouldn’t be alive today. Now that the event attracts 50,000 people you have reached a number that will allow to keep the event going in the longer run, at least financially. AND 1/2 of the folks that come only ever come once (cf Census Data), so without that constant corporate media coverage, you may lose a good portion of these one-timers, potentially killing the event, again financially. And how do you make people embrace new values by coming once? Some people might say they’ve been affected by the event, but often it’s because most folks were already open to all the ideas/values of Burning Man, and it just helped reinforce these ideas.

But BM has profited from the commercial media corporation advertisement, these guys call news, to grow and continues to profit from it to stay alive. The growth was also exponential. Such growth is not natural, and I don’t think manage to communicate values and ideals as well as slow growth. Rather we’ve seen an increased element of partying (or shallow participation should I call it?) to the expense of art and creative participation.

I really believe that the work by long time participants, and the depth they have brought into their work is much more valuable and relevant compared to the corp media news pieces. And not allowing the corp media to come to the event would open up new channels for these indie works, channels that you seem to consider important to sharing “it” to the world. So let’s share it from within the community.

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