There is no other festival quite like Burning Man.
Held for a week each summer in the middle of Nevada's Black Rock Desert, Burning Man is a temporary installation where participants can imagine and build their ideal society.
There's no cell service or internet, money doesn't work there, and artists spend months building enormous pieces that they only intend to burn down by the end of the week.
Writer and photographer NK Guy first made the trip to Burning Man in 1998, hoping that the festival would make for a great stop on a summer road trip.
"In many ways I was totally unprepared for what I'd encounter," Guy told Business Insider in an email. "It was like visiting a foreign country that you'd seen on a postcard — both familiar yet completely surreal. I felt I'd been transported to an alien planet, or to a movie set where the cameras aren't turning."
He's gone back to photograph the event every year since then. Guy has compiled many of his photos in a book called "Art of Burning Man," published by Taschen in August.
He shared some of his favorite shots from the book with Business Insider.
SEE ALSO: I went to Burning Man and it was even crazier than I expected
The Black Rock Desert, situated in a dry lakebed in Nevada, makes for an extremely dramatic backdrop.
Here, a group of burners paddle a rowboat near a pier that was constructed in a throwback to the area's past. A Spanish galleon is docked at the far end of the pier. "You can go from a brilliant golden sunrise to scorching intense heat at lunchtime to a choking dust storm in the afternoon to a pink desert twilight to intensely dark night – all within the space of a day," Guy said.
As you might imagine, photographing Burning Man comes with a daunting set of challenges.
"Dust storms are horrific to breathe in, and not great for fragile camera gear ... You can't drive in your car, so I had to carry around my equipment, including heavy tripods, by bike and foot," Guy said. "If the dust weren't bad enough, I've had years where a third of my shots were blank frames because the heat had melted the foam bumpers in my camera's shutter."
Though many people now travel to Burning Man for the parties, Guy's focus has always been the art produced for the event.
"Burning Man is one of the few places on Earth other than private homes and some religious institutions where nothing, including the art, can be bought or sold. The fact that the art isn't driven by commercial imperatives frees artists to take their work in very interesting directions," Guy said. Cupcake cars created by the "Acme Muffineering Team" certainly fit the bill.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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