bm2004: pinhole

sunday morning we headed over to pinhole camp, where they set people up with big cardboard barrels that are large pinhole cameras with sheets of photo paper inside, allowing people to take photo negative pictures themselves. they then develop the pictures in their makeshift lab inside a cube truck, allowing people to see and take the results home themselves!

they were pretty hectic that morning, so we hung around and helped out, donating our extra water so they would have enough to develop, and then learning how to load the barrels so they would be ready to go out.

then we got to take a couple of them out and try our hand at pinhole photography. i took a picture of this crazy large ferris wheel which has three seats inside, where you sit there and bicycle pedal, spinning you and your compatriots around, and slowly moving the ferris wheel along the ground. cheryl took a far off shot of starmageddon and macroscopic microcosm.

alas, when we checked back later in the day, i turns out that their chemicals had gone south, and between that and packing up camp, no shots from that day had been developed. we got some contact info; hopefully we can see what happened with our efforts.

since we had to give up our bikes which were heading back on the trailer at noon, we hiked out to the temple of stars. the temple is much wider this year, spanning a quarter mile, but they were already taking apart the further expanses of walkway and piling them up at the base in preparation for the burn that evening. as always, it’s a beautiful structure, made up of animal skeleton toy punch outs and other ornate wooden pieces. this year’s temple definitely had a japanese feel to it, and was beautifully somber. there were people all over, leaving notes and momentos, remembrances and confessions. many were crying in sorrow. i felt like i should, but i couldn’t. i never really can.

later that evening, we came back out for the temple burn. while most of blyss were hanging out on the big surly camp bus, i went up to get a closer view, and bumped into joy, so we watched the burn together. beautiful.

we rode the surly bus back to camp, and then walked across the playa in search of what remaining music there was, but cheryl wasn’t in the mood and was coming down with something, so we ended up walking back mostly along the esplanade.

1. it is sad how people are unable to stay silent for more than ten minutes, even for something that’s supposed to be a meaningful ceremony. sometimes people just need to shut the fuck up.
2. my legs are sore, my ass is sore, and my feet hurt from wearing boots that are (still) a half size too small.
3. we did happen upon the group that were spinning fireworks. yes, fireworks. now i’ve decided that fire spinners are pussies. firework spinning, now that’s impressive.

Posted at September 6, 2004 7:28 AM