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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,...

This year for the 4th of July, we did not want to drive a lot but we were still looking for an camping trip. We looked at several possible options but they were all booked (some booked over a year in advance). My wife got the idea to check out Pinnacles National Park. It’s so close to the Bay Area that you can drive to it in less than 2 hours (excluding traffic). Pinnacles is known as a climbing mecca (in winter months), for its California condors and for the large bat population living in the caves. We were expecting a lot of people during the 4th of July weekend and yes the campground was almost full but you read it right, on the busiest weekend of the year, there was still space left in the campground. Pinnacles, I found out, is the best kept secret in...

This year was marked by weather perturbations. Twice during the building weeks, the city and construction were halted by rain and/or hail, creating delays in building the man or the temple. The man was finished Monday at 5pm and the Temple was opened Tuesday night or Wednesday morning. It’s not unusual to have the Man or the Temple unfinished by the time the city gate opens. A Monday morning rainstorm has shutdown the city once again but this time during the arrival. The rain transformed the city in a muddy pit and all traffic was suspended until it dried out. Several hundreds of people got stuck at the entrance for 24h. The luckiest of them got stopped in Reno, where they had still a bit of civilization. The unluckiest were stopped on the sandy access road...

Monks are very present in Myanmar, there are between 400,000 and 500,000 professional monks in a country of about 50 million people. Our photo leader (Tuan) had arranged that we could photograph some young monks (called novices) during an entire afternoon.  Monks rise very early for the alms offering and then have their lunch quite early (around 11am). Since we went and photograph the sunrise that morning, we went to visit a monastery right before their lunch. Monks raised at the monastery were, I guessed, between the age of 5 to 12.  Novices were generally pretty happy to have their photo taken. Their lunch is mainly composed of rice and vegetables. When the gong rings, they form a line from the youngest to the oldest. Each brings his bowl in which he gets a...

Sunday night’s supermoon was the brightest and closest to Earth in 20 years. It was 14% bigger and about 30% brighter than usual. I did my usual research about possible locations in the week leading to the Full Moon. I found one promising location but Saturday was an extremely foggy day here in the San Francisco Bay. I had made up my mind that it was not worth going, until late Sunday afternoon, when a friend of mine sent me this text: “Moon shoot tonight?”. He lives in San Francisco so he had direct information that our friend Karl (see Karl the fog) was not coming over. I drove quickly (but safely) to San Francisco to meet my friend and we went to my planned location. I knew I would not see when the Moon exactly rises over the horizon because of...

One evening only, two artists! Vannina and I have been collaborating for years. She sometimes uses one of my photos as an inspiration or a guide for her amazing work. I sometimes use her ‘impossible to get’ angles of the Golden Gate Bridge or Paris as motivation for getting that image. For one evening only, we have joined forces and offer you an exhibit to see both our work together. All my work on display that evening will be on sale. First buyer will have the opportunity to pick up the art at the end of the exhibit. Date: 09/13/2014 Address: 739 Bryan St San Francisco, CA Hours: 6pm to 10pm. A sneak peak [table caption=”Some of the images I have already printed that I will exhibit that evening” width=”900″...