Time out Tuesdays: Burning Man

Welcome back to Time out Tuesdays, a continuing effort to share the stories that resonate with me and to keep myself constantly spelunking for the very best in photojournalism week after week, I've decided to start this new feature.

Every week, I'll post up a new photo story, video, picture or multimedia piece that I think gets it right and is worth taking a look at for study, ideas, appreciation and inspiration.

I hope you guys (both of you) enjoy it.

This week take a look at The Las Vegas Sun's coverage of Burning Man, the annual week long gathering in a dry lake bed in Nevada that celebrates... well... just about anything.



I've been watching this site for a while and it seems they've finally put up the last of the updates, so let's take a look at the goodies.

They've got blogs, slideshows and videos, but it's not any one thing that is done well on the site, it is the site itself. I like how the Sun dedicated a special section to the web, the same way the print side would generate a pull-out section or Sunday tab on the latest events.

Another newspaper that gets it. A pull-out may sell some ads and tell people what happened on a particular Sunday, but online it does a community service and acts to document history.

Others have talked about using the web to go hyper local or cover an event in new ways, but I've never seen it pulled off with such finesse. There is a large variety of coverage, from a nice video on being out in a sand storm to 360x360 panoramas of art installations to personal diaries from the scene.

There is just so much going on, that it's hard to single out any particular singular thing. I'll just say, this is the most inspiring thing I've seen online in recent memory.

I e-mailed the mastermind behind the project, Zach Wise, the Sun's newly hired multimedia editor, and a name you may recognize from "Soul of Athens" to ask him a few questions about his motivation and the process. It's been over a week, and so far no response. Understandably he's most likely busy, just look at the site.

This is amazing and I am inspired.