Sita Devi and Sunshine met in a tea house …. so it was a perfect match for them to have their Burning Man wedding on top of Pekoe Fury, our camp’s metal tea pot art car that shoots fire out the spout! I met Sita many years ago at the annual yoga week at Esalen along the Big Sur coast. She is an amazing singer, musician and yoga teacher … she has the voice of an angel and to listen to her singing and chanting in a yoga class is unmatched … it has brought me to tears many times over the years … the good, cleansing, healing kind.

When I retuned to Esalen this past spring for a yoga retreat with Janet Stone after the long Covid pause it was so nice to reconnect with Sita again! And when I found out that she was planning a playa wedding, I offered to be their photographer. We then hatched the plan for the ceremony to take place on top of the art car since it would have a special meaning for them as a couple.

The art car owner and one of my very best friends Yvette and I picked them up at their camp, along with Janet, who was their officiant, and her partner Fidel. Their wedding guests rode their bikes along with us for a while and then we re-grouped in front of the Grand Pyramid at PlayAlchemist at the corner of 10 and Esplanade.

I starting documenting the evening with the car ride out to the open playa, and could not resit a selfie with all of us, lol! … For the ceremony itself, I began on top of the car at the beginning of the ceremony, and then moved down to the ground level where I could shoot with my telephoto to capture the whole tea pot and the pyramid in the background. I used my old Burning Man Nikon D700 for the wide shots with a 17-35 ( going to sadly retire it after this year’s burn) and one of my regular wedding cameras, the D780 with a 70-200 for the telephoto images. I didn’t bring out these camera’s for the rest of the week, as it was sooooo dusty and sooooo hot …. I just used my iPhone 13 pro max on the raw setting and was satisfied with the rest of my wanderings around Black Rock City, capturing the amazing art.

Tuesday at sunset was perfect, not too hot, and then when the sun went down, that beautiful alpenglow on Old Razorback Mountain was a sweet backdrop for a few more portraits. Congrats Sita and Sunshine, see you in the tubs!

To learn more about Sita’s offerings, check out her website here: https://www.sitadevilove.com