Welcome to PetermanDotOrg's fourth installment in the Burning Man saga, this time detailing the year 1999. Inside you will find about 390 images to help you relive those magic moments (if you were there) or convince you to go (if you weren't). Everything is categorized into handy topics shown to your left, so feel free to start browsing. Or, you could waste a few more minutes reading some news and rants.

Those of you who have visited the 2000 gallery have probably seen the cool Playa Card feature. Well, just for kicks I ported it over to this section as well. Have fun!

Every image in this site has it's own little bulletin board. I spent a lot of time coding this feature so USE IT! And don't forget, there's also a full-blown Guestbook for general Burning Man comments. After you've checked out the pictures here, click the link that says – ta da! – "Guestbook" at left!

I've been cruising through quite a few Burning Man '99 sites recently, and every now and then I encounter a picture that looks remarkably familiar. Not because it's of something that I also saw while there, but because I took the damn picture in the first place. Remember folks, if you want to use someone else's picture, it's common courtesy to 1) ask permission first, and 2) give proper credit and a link back to their site.

If you spend some time looking around the web or reading/viewing various media offerings, you'll get the impression that Burning Man is one giant naked-fest with at least 75% of the people going unclad at any given time. This is, of course, ridiculous. But I know that just saying so isn't good enough, so I conducted my own unscientific survey.

Hypothesis: Nudity at Burning Man is grossly overstated in the media (including the web).

Methodology: I waited until Saturday, the most crowded day of the week. It also turned out to be about the hottest day, which if anything would skew the numbers away from my hypothesis. I plunked down in a chair at the front of our camp, which happened to be along Mercury, the busiest pedestrian avenue in the city. For the next 300 people who walked in front of me, left to right, I recorded the number of nude men, nude women, and topless women. This took a little less than an hour.

Results: During this time, I counted one naked man (0.33% of sample), one naked woman (0.33%), and thirteen topless women (4.33%). Lumped together, these 15 people represent a measly 5% of the population.

Conclusion: Yes, there are naked people at Burning Man. But if this is what you are coming to the event to see, you are wasting your money. Take everything you would spend on tickets, food, water, and shelter and stop off at any nudie bar in Reno; you'll get far, far more for your dollar.

I occasionally get mail asking about how I did this or that or what type of camera I use. So, to pre-empt any more inquiries, here's more than you ever would want to know:

Camera: All the pictures in this site (with the exception of the Playa Chicken's) were taken with a Nikon CoolPix 900 digital camera. I use the highest resolution / lowest compression setting, which gives me 1280x960 images that each weigh it at over 500k. The camera has a 48Meg FlashCard which can store upwards of 75 images before I have to offload to a laptop. I really like the 900, but I wish someone would give me a 950.

Image editing: My program of choice is PhotoImpact from ULead. Why? Primarily because I've been using for a very long time and I know my way around in it quite well.

HTML'ing: I use a variety of tools, but primarily for file management. I still type a lot of angle brackets, especially on the ASP pages. All information about specific images is contained in a database that I can control with some administrative tools I wrote. It's pretty cool.

Throughout these Burning Man pages you'll find assorted references to my distaste for people bringing their dogs to Burning Man. This has led some to conclude that I'm just a grumpy dog-hater.

Of course, that's not true (take a few clicks around the rest of peterman.org and you'll eventually encounter Shaka, our own lovingly cared-for canine). In fact, it's because I think dogs are so fantastic that I'm against them being on the playa.

It's really quite simple: the playa is a lousy environment for a dog. The official Burning Man site dedicates an entire page to this topic so I won't repeat all the warnings here. But I really don't think they go far enough. I firmly believe it is time for the Burning Man Organization to ban dogs at the event.

Everyone thinks that they will take exceptional care of their own dog, and some very well might. But there is absolutely no test that they apply at the front gate to ensure that a person is truly responsible. As a result, the jerks are going to bring their dogs in right alongside the responsible people... dogs will be traumatized, dogs will be lost, dogs will die.

Yes, I know that Burning Man is centered around the concept of personal freedom, but your freedoms end at the tip of your nose. You can do most anything you want to yourself, but no one has the right to take any action that unwillingly puts another in harm's way. This includes your beloved pet.

You have an entire year to make alternate arrangements for your dog. Saying that you simply don't have anything else to do with Fido while you're gone is not an excuse. If you bring him, he will probably be OK. Probably. But if he gets lost, he might very well die. Are you really willing to take that chance?