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Renegade Burn 2021

Renegade Burn 2021 (photo by Scott London)

Burning Man was canceled again this year because of the pandemic, and I don’t think any of the thousands of people who gathered in the desert expected anything other than a big campout under the stars. Nothing was organized. There were no streets, no fences, no porta-potties, no big artworks, no “Man” to set on fire. In fact, the Bureau of Land Management had imposed a strict fire ban this year. So when we all gathered in a huge circle on Saturday night, it was understood that there wasn’t going to be a show or any fireworks or anything burned to the ground.

But something phenomenal happened. Studio Drift, an artist collective from Holland, mounted a show using drones flying in close formation. The drones — visible only as tiny points of light — rose into the sky and, like a murmuration of starlings, swooped and whirled in dazzling configurations. After a few minutes they went dark. Then they suddenly lit up again in the formation of an enormous man, some 150 feet tall. His arms slowly went up, and he twirled around like a dervish as the crowd went wild.

Shivers rose up my spine and I experienced a euphoric rush unlike anything I’ve felt in a good long time. It wasn’t quite a “burn,” but it had the full effect of one. Powerful medicine — especially after this long and dark year we’ve all lived through.

Aerial view of Renegade Burn 2021 (photo by Scott London)

We don’t know how many people attended Renegade Burn 2021. There was simply no way to get an accurate count. Even if there were, the numbers kept fluctuating as people came and went throughout the week. Some who attended camped miles away from the action, or off-playa. And people showed up from multiple directions, complicating the effort to measure the number of vehicles entering the area from the usual access points.

I’ve been poring over my aerial photos — like the one above — to get some sense of the numbers. As a baseline for comparison, I’ve been using aerial pictures from last year (see photos) when there were 3,500 people on the playa, according to the BLM rangers who were doing their best to keep count. My guess is that there were between 15,000 and 20,000 people on the scene this year. Others say that figure is probably too high. Regardless, it felt massive.

Much has already been written about Renegade Burn. The big question on everyone’s mind is what the success of the gathering will mean for the future of Burning Man. Was it the end of the event as we’ve known it for so many years, or perhaps the beginning of something new and better? For more on this, see for example:

The last two pieces in the list both feature some of my images.

Click below to view the complete set of photos from the 2021 Renegade Burn

Lightning in a Bottle

LiB 2017

It was my first time at Lightning in a Bottle, the annual festival held on the shores of Lake San Antonio in central California. My first thought on arriving at the event had nothing to do with the gorgeous backdrop, the beautiful people, or the sweet vibe. It was more like, “Where have I been all these years?”

Lightning in a Bottle is a project of the DoLab, a Los Angeles-based production company. This year they invited me to be part of their in-house media team as one of the official photographers.

I got to work side-by-side with some incredible talents, photographers whose work I’ve admired for years. I also got to revisit the feeling of being a newbie, which is humbling but also good for the spirit.

Being at the event was a rich experience, especially as I moved away from the big sound stages and peformance venues. Farther afield, I discovered art installations, sacred spaces, lectures and panel discussions, movement classes, folks gathering in the shade of large oak trees to talk philosophy or meditate together.

More than once I had the feeling that this may be something like what people experienced back in the Summer of Love—a convergence of free spirits who come not just to dance and have a good time but to also explore an expanded concept of individual consciousness and human possibility.

It seemed fitting, too, that the event is held just down the road from the Esalen Institute, widely regarded as the birthplace of the human potential movement. I’ve spent a lot of time at Esalen tracing some of the ideas that were spawned there and how they have shaped our culture over the last half-century (Here’s a recent article of mine on Esalen).

Lightning in a Bottle is a festival, of course, not an institute. But it strikes me that some of today’s festivals—Burning Man and Lightning in a Bottle chief among them—are helping to create a context for new ideas of community, participation, creativity, and social and personal transformation.

Here are a handful of my photos. For more, check out the expanded set on Facebook.

 

The Beacon  Leoj  Jessie Jonny  Damian  Johna Goldenflame  Live Free  Meditation Lookout  Tall Ships

Old Spanish Days

“Celebrating our heritage” can mean different things. For some, it’s all about confetti and sombreros, fish tacos and folklórico. For others, it’s about the pride of being a fourth or fifth-generation Californian. The kids, for their part, mostly love an excuse to dress up and parade down State Street.

For the complete set of images from Fiesta 2013, click here.