At the start of the year we were asked in editing class to choose the most important photo of the summer.

This summer was filled with a lot of very important moments for me but I think that this photograph really says it all.

The Honey Trap.

Members of the Nectar Village theme camp climb the Honey Trap on Friday before the Man burns. Animus a New York City based art collective designed the Honey Trap to replicate mathematical proportions found everywhere in the architecture of nature.

They were trying to highlight the relationship between Architecture and Nature as well as compare different versions of Metropolis in cities and the different versions of metropolis in nature. – Photo by Niamh Malcolm

This photograph actually brings up some bittersweet emotions when I look at it. Burningman in and of itself was the most inspiring event I have been a part of in years. I have already had about ten different documentary ideas sprout from this event and because I am very passionate about them I am excited and cant wait to get started.

This particular photograph was on the Friday night about three hours before ‘the Man’ burned during a succession of sandstorms. The people who are standing and sitting atop ‘The Honey Comb’ here were pounding on the structure while singing and behind me people were dancing and there was even someone playing a trumpet that I recall shooting fire. The theme at Burningman this year was Metropolis and this structure was built to highlight the relationships between Human Metropolis and Metropolis structures in nature as well as the relationships between Architecture and Nature.

On a personal note before and after taking this photograph I was talking to one of my new friends about the things we had decided to release while the Temple burned the next day. I don’t want to go into the things that I wrote down but we spent quite some time picking apart everything in our lives and each wrote several page letters. Some of the most painful words I’ve ever had to write and many strangers will have read it. I felt exposed and this photograph just immediately reminds me of that feeling. The Temple is a place that you write anything you want to write and it’s a place of peace and love. I say that as if the entire event doesn’t have those values exuding from every person when it does, but the Temple takes this all to another level.