Burning Man 2025 Photos

Lightning and the Burning Man 2025 Man Base (composite of 2 images)

Here are my Burning Man 2025 Photos!
There are one decillion photos on this page. All of my Burning Man images are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial license. If you share them, please attribute the photographs to me by name and link back here to Duncan.co In other words please do not sell my photographs, make prints of them, or make money from them in any way whatsoever. That includes advertising on a website.

Please Help!
I make plenty of mistakes when posting so many photographs like this. FWIW, I post so many because I can never predict how or why an image may be meaningful and we have infinite space here on the internet. Invariably when I post so many images it’s almost impossible to get all the captions correct, so I always appreciate any comments (very bottom of page, waaaaay down below) or direct emails helping me fix my mistakes. You can email me ( DuncanRawlinson@gmail.com ) to tell me how I’m doing it wrong or where the mistakes are. I will update this post to reflect your comment or email. Please include lots of detail and any relevant links. Please copy the link to the photo or email me the photo so I know which photograph it is.

The images below are mostly in reverse chronological order.

If you click on any photo you it will open that image at full resolution in a new tab.

This was first published September, 25th 2025.

Music To Go With These Images:
Here is my Burning Man 2025 playlist. I made this so you have something to listen to while browsing these images. (open this link in another window or in the Spotify app…)

If this music doesn’t suit you, Burning Man legend @muloka has compiled this massive collection of music from Burning Man 2025 here.

A few words before the endless scroll

There is a saying that Burning Man is hard. Or at least it should be, that’s where the growth comes from. I’ve been fortunate to attend every burn since 2012 (except the first rogue one), and 2025 was the hardest yet. It felt like build week, then rebuild week, and then rebuild week again. Dust storms hit without warning, rain turned the playa into slick clay, and wind gusts ripped through camps, flattening shade and scattering gear. In one whiteout so thick I couldn’t see my front wheel, I walked my bike straight into a van I hadn’t even known was there. Two strangers welcomed me inside, offered water, and waited with me until it cleared. This was the only time I have ever accepted an offer of shelter since 2012, it was that bad. When I finally reached camp, I discovered my “smart idea” of leaving a tent window open had left a quarter-inch of dust, about six millimetres, over everything. Years ago that might have ended my burn. This time I powered up the leaf blower, cleared it out, and kept going.

Later in the week, racing the rain back to camp, both wheels of my oversized bike seized at the same moment as the playa packed in between the fenders and the wheels, throwing me to the ground. Abandoning it wasn’t an option, it was loaded with expensive camera gear. So I grabbed the handlebars and dragged it through the mud until a stranger appeared and helped me push it the last stretch. That’s Burning Man: people showing up when it counts.

Back at camp, after some food and cursing, I pulled the fenders off, freed the wheels, and went right back out to shoot, on foot this time. One of the lessons of Burning Man is to keep going, no matter what, and to do it with as much grace as you can.

By midweek the skies finally cleared and the city erupted with energy. Everyone who had hunkered down through the storms came alive, determined to make the most of the few days left. That burn felt earned.

This year also made me wonder if it might be my last. Family health challenges, personal hurdles, and the craziest camp drama I’ve ever seen all took their toll. Combined with the storms, it left me questioning whether it was time to step back. Still, I was grateful to be there, present, working, contributing, even if uncertain about the future.

Viktor Frankl once wrote, “In some ways suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.” Obviously what he endured is not comparable to anything on the playa. Still, the idea holds: people find meaning in many kinds of suffering, even the self-imposed grind of Burning Man. Mudita!

For me, photography is my small sacrifice. Beyond survival and camp setup, all I do is try to capture the magic of the burn, a way of giving back to a culture that has given me so much.

What I know for sure is how deeply grateful I am for this community and the years we’ve shared. Hopefully this will not be my last burn, but only time will tell.

This gallery is my record of 2025: over 1,400 photographs from a year that tested patience and gear but also revealed resilience, beauty, and meaning. If it feels less polished than past years, that’s because it is, a glimpse of a burn that demanded much and gave even more.

Thank you for welcoming me into your community and allowing me to contribute in my way. I am forever grateful. I hope to see you next year.

(A quick note: I accidentally deleted hundreds of blog comments while bulk-clearing spam. If yours is missing, that’s why. Sorry!)

And now, time to scroll for days.

Enjoy!

All of my Burning Man photo galleries:

THANK YOU ALL!

All of my Burning Man photo galleries: