The 10 essential Burning Man photos

These are the pics that your followers have been looking forward to all year long

Just as a tree falling in an empty forest makes no sound, you did not attend Burning Man unless you take the right photos and post them on Instagram. Everyone who does not attend Burning Man looks forward to seeing photos of Burning Man all year long, so contributing your photos and hashtagging them appropriately is a public service. This list of essential poses will ensure that you return from the Playa and enjoy weeks of showing your friends, distant family and colleagues in fashion, advertising or hospitality the hundreds of photos in your IG feed that they might have accidentally muted.

#1. “Look at me stuck in traffic and suffering with good humor and radical acceptance!”

Everyone knows that a core component of “The Burn” is suffering. Otherwise well nourished, hydrated and protected-from-the-elements people from civilized places attend Burning Man to become radically uncomfortable. This discomfort begins before even setting boot onto the cracked, poisonous surface of the Playa. It can take from hours to days for you or your hired driver to reach Black Rock City in your RV, and it is important to document these inaugural moments of suffering. Along with the many flattering, costumed, dusty photo poses that follow, you must post at least one photo of a long line of vehicles driven by people in concert t-shirts and cargo pants.

#2. “Look how long my legs are!”

After being stuck in traffic for a day or cooped up in a friend of a friend’s private plane for 45-minutes, a great way to stretch your legs is to take photos of them. Legs are approximately 30% longer on the playa at golden hour thanks to shadows, platform boots and acid. It is important that you capture these photos during golden hour and before consuming caviar and grilled mahi mahi. Taking these photos during any other lighting conditions or on a full stomach will require even more Photoshop.  

#3. “Look at me hanging from the scaffolding of the structure around the DJ booth above the dusty plebs!”

Burning Man is a temporary city made of temporary structures, filled with temporary people, made of metal scaffolding. The people hanging from the metal scaffolding above the DJ booth are the highest status people at Burning Man. It is very easy to social climb at Burning Man: all you have to do is literally climb. The peak of social climbing at Burning Man is the Robot Heart heart. If you have the strength, dexterity and lack of judgment to climb the heart, you will be given mirrored heart-shaped sunglasses to immortalize your elevated social status.

#4. “Look at me with my Playa tribe!”

You are the company you keep, and if you have selected your camp properly, everyone at Pelvic Flora, Constellation Masturbation, Dust Legion or whatever your cult camp is called will be almost as hot as you are. Early on, before arguments arise about shirked camp responsibilities and broken ENM boundaries, gather everyone in your camp who is attractive for a family portrait. You can ask someone to take it who is not quite attractive enough to be in it, and then change places with them and take the photo with them in it so that they feel included. Delete this photo immediately so that there is no chance the photo without you is somehow circulated.

#5. “Look at me in front of this unique work of art!”

A common misperception about Burning Man is that people attend it purely for drug consumption and casual sex. People also attend Burning Man to consume drugs and have casual sex on or adjacent to a wide variety of artwork. When you return from the Black Rock City you will be asked if you saw a particular piece of art–perhaps a giant installation of a single word that one might find woven into a toilet pillow in an older aunt’s guest bathroom (e.g., “love,” “believe,” “you,” “us,” “trust”), or maybe a towering statue of a person next to a slightly shorter person, or the contents of a 1970s living room perfectly organized in the deep playa. The only correct way to respond to this question is to smile, nod wordlessly, stick your phone in their face and show them a photo of you right in front of it. In order to get the correct photo, which excludes everyone except for you, you will need to either get to the piece of art right after sunrise when everyone else has gone to bed or tell people you are a model and an art critic and need them to get out of your frame. Photos of you next to Burning Man art after it has been acquired by founders and installed in their backyard in Miami do not count as Burning Man art photos.

#6. “Look at me in my tutu!” (N/A for female identifying people)

Burning Man (and floor parties in Brooklyn) is a safe space for straight men to wear clothing (or not wear clothing) typically associated with people who are neither straight nor men. Pastel tutus are a liberating choice but should only be worn for very short periods of time when other equally attractive, well-built men are also wearing tutus, which signals en masse to women that you are all open-minded, feminist men with whom they should have casual sex as soon as they have their RV to themselves. A more utilitarian wardrobe staple that shows off the calves, thighs and glutes you have been working on for 11 months is a pair of man-tights. Not tights. Man-tights. Tights are what women wear. Man-tights are what strong, ripped, manly men wear. There are unlimited varieties of man-tights to choose from. These unlimited varieties are limited to shiny gold, shiny silver and geometric or cosmic themes (stars, galaxy, celestial stuff). After acquiring your man-tights, visit your local sensual toy merchant and ask someone on staff with nose piercings for a “cock ring.” Wearing this will enhance both your comfort and your confidence. 

#7. “Look at me on my highly customized bike!”

During the 10 days Burning Man takes place, more than 80,000 bicycles are ridden and 60,000 are stolen. Everything at Burning Man communicates status, including transportation, and bicycles are a great middle-of-the-road (pun!) way to tell everyone that you are just a bit better off than people on foot. Bicycles ensure that you can catch 10 to 15 minutes of all of your favorite DJs sets, and riding a bicycle also make you look up to 10 years younger, so a photo of you grinning in your round goggles, fishnet stockings and Steampunk hat that inexplicably does not fly off of your head as you careen across the arid desert should be featured prominently in your IG stories. 

#8. “Look at me holding my ornamental parasol!”

It is very sunny at Burning Man, except at night and during dust storms, which is the majority of the time you will be awake. Parasols are important protection during the sunrise set and the sunset set. Parasols made of lace, string or feathers are highly effective at blocking negative vibes while keeping flattering UV light on your skin. A more advanced version of this photo adds a bike, which means you can combine this pose with pose #7. 

#9. “Look at me literally playing with fire!”

To compensate for the total absence of the fourth element (water), Burning Man over-indexes on the use of the first element: fire. One of the screening questions for art camps at Burning Man is, “how will you use fire in your display of unique creativity?” Fire outside of Burning Man is a dangerous and destructive element, but within the safe confines of Black Rock City fire is as benign and friendly as guyliner. Anytime you see someone or something breathing fire, juggling fire or on fire, get as close to it/them as possible, lower your round Steampunk goggles, do something anarchic with your hands and smile for the iPhone. 

#10. “Look at how hard I trained / starved all year for this one photo!” 

Burning Man is as famous for the food and chefs flown in from all over the world as it is for the months of food deprivation prior to the festival. Those friendly people who hug you at the gates of Black Rock City and say, “welcome home” upon your arrival are not being friendly. They are checking your body fat composition. If you are not as fit as a 2-year-old pit bull with abs that are visible from outer space, you may be refused admission. Your level of fitness will never be higher than the moment you take off your civilian clothes for the first set on the Playa, so be sure to capture as many photos as possible of you in your most revealing costume. 

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Your Burning Man photos are your legacy, a veritable time machine for you, your followers and future ex-partners to revisit time and time again, so be sure to add the hashtags provided above to your photo captions so that you can be a part of history. And don’t forget to tag your costume designer and all the brands who made you and your Burn possible.