[about the project]
after every burning man, a large number of photographs from professionals and artists hit the web.
while beautiful, these works often do not accurately portray the average burning man participant.
the subjects are selected because of their uniqueness at an event which draws from all walks.
professional equipment, with controled lighting, pre-planned location and multiple poses over a long
session resulting in some of the most beautiful photography to grace the web.
however, because of their beauty, those photos provide a distorted view of a typical burning man participant. indeed, one of my photographic subjects told that she had a hard time convincing friends to attend the event after viewing some photo collections. the friends were worried that they would not fit in. they didn't have the "right look."
thus was my project concived. my goal was to shoot as many people as possible in a short time, while capturing the diversity of our event. i wondered the playa for a few hours each day, shooting people that I found interesting who also represented the diversity of burning man. for most subjects, i took only two or three images. with one exception, I spent no more then five minutes on any particular subject. I kept posing to a minimum, capturing many of my subjects in candid moments. my ultimate goal was photo-journalisim: to document the faces of black rock city.
[the photographer]
i'm a frustrated amature. back in the late 1980s, i studied photography for about two years. this was back
in the days of film, so i learned to carefully compose my shots due to concerns about film and processing
costs. sadly, i did not pursue photography as a career since i really hate weddings.
over time, i took fewer and fewer photographs. i loved my pentax spotmatic and oly om-4t, but i just couldn't afford my expensive hobby. i was a film hold out for a long time, purchasing my first digital camera in 2005.
as a photographer, this project allowed me to grow in my biggest area of weakness: portrait work. if you bother to go through the all the images that i placed on this site, you will see that a growing confidence with my subject matter.[photo geek]
i shoot using an
olympus e-1, with a 14-54mm lens. i chose this body
after comparing it to the canon 20d and nikon d70. while the canon and the nikon have higher pixel counts,
this was not a major factor for. the 5.5 mega-pixels in the oly are more then enough. i don't do much
croping, as i compose as much as possible in camera. a benefit from learing with film bodies. lens
were not a factor either. i did not have an investment in either canon or nikon glass, so i was able
to approach the body without that worry.
what ultimately drove me to pick the e-1 was the fact that the body was weather proof. i specificly wanted a body that could handle the harsh conditions of the playa. i had heard horror stories of the canon and nikon bodies killed by the playa dust. it was nice to pull my camera straight from my bag and start shooting without the encumberance of a plastic bag over the damn thing. more then one person suggested that i bag the oly. i took great pleasure in telling it was not needed.
i shoot in raw format then convert to jpeg. for workflow, i use bibble 4 from the fine folks at bibble labs. a great tool and simple to use.
[copyright]
all photographs on this website are copyright 2006 by eric muller. please contact me if you have any
questions. i'm also happy to provide high res photos to the subjects portrayed on this site.
you can contact me at eric@facesofburningman.com.