Burning Man / Photography Links

From Burning Man 2008: A Photo Essay by Matt Freedman, which is Now Available on the iTunes App Store.

This set of links is by no means meant to be yet another exhaustive compilation of all things Burning Man. Rather it is my own personal set of Burning Man related bookmarks – a small set of sites that I find to be extremely useful for preparing for Burning Man. I have also included a handful of my very favorite general photography links, which though not Burning Man specific, will help anybody planning on doing serious photography at the event.

If you have suggestions for additions to this list, by all means contact me.

Selected Burning Man Links

Shopping Links

Photography Links

  • Carrying Your Equipment If you are bringing a digital SLR to Burning Man, one of your most important decisions is how you are going to carry it. In my Photography at Burning Man guide in Burning Man 2008: A Photo Essay I recommend a holster bag worn on the chest. There are many options for this, a few include: the M-Rock Sierra, the ThinkTank Digital Holster series, and the Lowepro Toploading series. A great resource that shaped my thinking about this is Bags 101 by Thom Hogan (I would also recommend you take a look at his other articles as well, and if you shoot Nikon, buying his e-book for your camera is one of the best investments you can make. And while you are there, check out Thom's Recommended Books list as well).
  • Misc. Items Here are links to a few miscellaneous that I mention in the Guide to Photography at Burning Man which is part of Burning Man 2008: A Photo Essay by Matt Freedman. Lens Pens are my favorite way to keep my lenses clean. Deoxit can be extremely useful under certain circumstances for cleaning the contacts between lens and camera, or between battery and camera. The Upstrap really revolutionizes the way you carry your camera. Last I heard, the Hyperdrive Colorspace UDMA was the best option around for a portable hard drive for offloading your cards in the field, though this technology can change rapidly, so make sure to do some research before purchasing.
  • Composition There is a near infinite number of resources out there for improving your compositional skills. One free online guide to composition that I like is Petteri's Pontifications. There are also many great essays at Luminous Landscape. My favorite book on composition is Learning to See Creatively by Bryan Peterson.
  • Post-Processing The single most important thing you can do to improve your own photographs from Burning Man is to shoot in raw format. Here is a good essay that explains why. To learn post-processing, I find that books work best. Probably my favorite for getting started is Scott Kelby's 7-Point System for Adobe Photoshop CS3, though all the Kelby books are great. His video training site is also highly recommended.