Dust at Burning Man

Depending of whom you ask, dust at Burning Man is a curse or a blessing. It’s a curse because when the wind is picking up, a dust storm can be really strong and makes your life miserable. You will get playa dust everywhere: in your eyes (invest in goggles), on your hair/body/clothes, inside your RV (or tent), inside your cooler, inside your engine (what! oh yes), inside your camera gear. For others (myself included), I love dust and dust storms. I cannot wait for the first strong dust storm, I literally run in the dust storm with my camera.

For me, the dust storm brings the real burning man. Experienced (or well-equipped) burners don’t mind the dust and suddenly everything is covered in this fine sand. Suddenly burners sport great goggles, masks, looks like they came out of the book “Dunes”. Art cars become a shape in the dust (is this really a ship I just saw).

Dust storms act as a challenge for burners and the ones that are out there during the storm are really the hard core ones. I think dust and dust storms are an acquired taste, you don’t like them at first and then after a while, you start loving them more and finally you love them. Or at least I do.

So when the first dust storm hit on Thursday, I could not wait to get out there. Everything looked strange and out of place but also great.

This image is what I love, you can’t see everything but there is a human element with the bike being parked there but everything is fuzzy.

Like I said before, you meet great people during dust storm. First there is few people out there and the ones that are out love the dust. Exactly like this fellow guarding the Man, they are called Man Guardians. If you want to know why there are Man Guardians, read this.
He was happy to be there and enjoying himself in this “fine weather” as he put it. I’m not sure many would have called this storm a fine weather.

This is also the time to show off your fantastic, one of a kind, googles.

You get a sense of how big was the Man this year.

Let’s talk about dust and gear. That’s the most common question I get when people see my photos: How do you deal with the dust?
First before leaving I tape all the non-essential cracks and ports on my camera and lenses. Some of my lens have a lens coat on them and the ones that don’t have a lens coat, I put gaffer tape over them.
Then at burning man, I use a raincoat to cover the camera and the lens during strong dust storms, otherwise I don’t use anything. You read it right, I use my camera as usual, I swapped lenses when I want/need to. My camera bag is F-Stop, and it comes back covered in dust but it cleans very nicely after (see later for more details on the cleaning part).

I have seen people on the playa with monobloc, beauty dish, and very expensive RED cameras. The dust protection is generally there but does not hamper its use.

Here are two photos of myself, the first one I have the camera without the rain coat, the second one I have it in the rain coat.

My gear comes back dusty but in perfect working condition. As a CPS (Canon Pro Services) member, I get a fair number of free cleaning. I ship all my gear to Canon for a complete cleaning when I get back. I spend also a fair amount of time, cleaning my camera bag and any gear (like the remotes and tripods) I brought to Black Rock City.

My tripod always has a tougher time. I don’t take any special precautions for my tripod while in the Nevada desert. Once I get back I truly clean it. I have a Really Right Stuff tripod and bullhead, I follow their maintenance page on how to clean your tripod. It’s easy but time consuming. It takes me a good 90 minutes to truly clean it.

Once cleaned, the tripod is as good as new.

This brings me to the subject of what my wife and I bring to Burning Man to support our photographic experience. The two main issues are transportation, how can you carry your equipment for an extended period of time, still confortable and keeping the dust away from our equipment while you are not using it. For the transportation, I swear by bike trailers. I can stuff them with my camera bag, quadcopter in its case and I still have room for extra water (important!), lights, and other essentials (sunscreen, goggles, etc..)

Otherwise you will have to wear a backpack and it gets old very quickly. I have two trailers, the Burley Nomad Bike trailer and a cheap bike trailer from china that I have retrofitted to use the same Burley connection. That way my wife and I have the same trailer attachments and we can switch bike trailers at will. The added bonus of a bike trailer is that it makes your ice run a lot easier..

For keeping the dust away of our gear, I have a F-STOP camera bag: Tilopa BC with a large ICU. We had a F-STop each between my wife and I, both had no problem keeping the dust away. After 10 days, they were no longer black but sand colored. But the zippers were working perfectly and smoothly, the seams kept the dust away from the pockets that you don’t open. There is no magic here, if you use your dusty hands to open and get something from the inside of your bag, dust will get inside.

For my DJI quadcopter, I bought this tough case. It’s dust and water resistant. The outside case had dust all over but no dust inside. To clean the case, I simply use a power washer on it and that was it. It’s a lot cheaper than a Pelican case.