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This unique gallery of a dozen years of burns is a must have for any past, present, and future Burner!
The author shot for Time magazine
Laughing Squid covered our launch party
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Get your Updated & Revised Edition

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Desert to Dream
A Dozen Years of Burning Man Photography


By Barbara Traub
Introduction: Les Blank.
Foreword and Afterword: Larry Harvey.
Epilogue: Lawrence Ferlinghetti.
Contribution: Leonard Nimoy.
Postscript: D.S. Black


$29.95, hardcover, 176 Pages,
ISBN: 1-59702-026-8, 11 x 10



Host "This book is a landmark. It does more than illustrate a so-called counter-cultural event. Rather, it exhibits the integrity and singleness of vision of a complete work of art...It does not merely display Burning Man in pictures or explain it in words: It manifests the spirit of our culture through its style."
- Larry Harvey, the founder and director of Burning Man

The 2006 edition has sold out, so enjoy a brand new printing with 16 more pages, 24 new photographs, and extra postscript.

The Black Rock Arts Festival (otherwise known as "Burning Man,") has become an annual pilgrimage for a generation of artists to the dry, desert, alkali flats of northwestern Nevada during the last days of summer. So many people from around the world gather to celebrate human imagination that Burning Man now qualifies as Nevada's fifth-largest city. Then it culminates Labor Day weekend with the burning of a four-story tall wooden sculpture of a "man".

This book is a groundbreaking visual document of a dozen years of Burning Man celebrations -- from its infancy as a performance art exhibition in the late 80's to its explosion as a pop culture, community-driven phenomenon today. Photographer Barbara Traub captures the sacred and profane through photos of otherworldly artifacts, structures, and costumes that defy description.

Contributions from filmmaker Les Blank, Burning Man founder Larry Harvey, Star Trek's Mr. Spock, Leonard Nimoy, and beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti help to illuminate Traub's unique perspective on this dynamically evolving event.


Get an autographed copy with free limited edition postcard


NOTE: non-US customers must pay extra postage (prices in USD) since Desert to Dream is 3 lbs (3 times more than our regular books). Canadian customers will pay $14.95. Customers from all other countries will pay $27.95. For multiple copies, please add the same quantity for extra shipping (ex. 2 copies requires 2 "QTY" for International Shipping).

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More praise for Desert to Dream


Carthedral "Traub's evocative photography displays the human connections established by the attendees with each other, the art they produce and the beautiful landscape of the Nevada desert. A particular aspect of humanity's capacity for artistry is what Traub brings us. From the sensitive nude photographs of people in all manner of color and caked in mud to cars retrofitted to be art on wheels and the temporary temples which dot the desert floor."
- TakeGreatPictures.com

"Barb Traub is an excellent artist, a rare talent who should be given more opportunity to contribute her gift to the world. She is capable of bringing a very fresh look to whatever subject she approaches and has a knack for creating classic masterpieces wherever she goes."
- Les Blank, prize-winning independent filmmaker

"I just wanted to say thank you for a fantastic program! Barbara, you put on a wonderful show and the audience was captivated by your photos and the way you were able to describe your experiences on the playa. Larry, thank you for sharing your inspiration, stories and how Burning Man has evolved."
- Nicole Grant, Commonwealth Club of San Francisco






Reviews




Infinity "Barbara Traub's new book Desert to Dream is an unprecedented photographic record of a decade of Burning Man celebrations...Ten years ago Traub worked on assignment for Wired's cover story on Burning Man, was chief photographer for HardWired's book Burning Man that was published the following year, and shot for Wired News in 2001."
- Wired News

"Barbara Traub...is best known as the photographer who created some of the most recognizable images of Burning Man including those in the 1997 HardWired book on the festival."
- Scott Beale, Laughing Squid

"Holiday Bookshelf - Top 10 Pick: Critically acclaimed photographer Barbara Traub takes readers on a stunning visual journey that brings to life 10 years of Burning Man"
- Nevada Magazine, 2006

"Traub presents 10 years' worth of lavish color photography on the annual counterculture festival, Burning Man...Traub's images capture the festival's spirit in lots of zany costumes and art installations celebrating off-kilter takes on contemporary culture and the participants' flights of fancy...accompanying text carries the highest-countercultural-subcultural pedigree...Good visual fun and countercultural documentation, this is vibrant stuff in these grim days, a must for pop-culture collections."
-Mike Tribby, ALA Booklist

"Barbara's Burning Man photo collection is great and will take you on a journey through this ephemeral world. Ethnicity, extravanganza, pop culture, erotism, nudity, free land : the Burning Man is something unique"
- Fine Art TV

"In fact, [Desert to Dream] is often downright beautiful. I have been to the playa myself five times, and I only recognized about a dozen of the scenes in this book. This is, of course, a testament to how much there is to see at any given BM, to the fact that no matter how many snapshots you take, you will never see it all…It's a lovely book, beautifully shot, surreal and random and appropriately odd."
- Mark Morford, SF Gate



Backgrounder


HMS Love "Even though Burning Man long ago decamped to Nevada, it has always been a quintessentially Bay Area thing; in its intent and focus, proclivity for nudity and drugs, and its appeal to techies. Attendance at the festival is now global, but Burning Man still provides an opportunity for our locals to shine. SFist knows of locals who save all year to buy hundreds of light sabers, who married people they met there, and well, people who can't remember it at all. Barb Traub has been going to Burning Man for a long time. Her book, Desert to Dream: A Decade of Burning Man Photography, chronicles a changing festival over the last decade. If you need some visuals to jog your memory of festivals past or won't be able to attend this year, her book provides a visual exploration of Burning Man, which after all, began as an art exhibition, of sorts."
- SFist


Press Release