The 25th Burning Man festival, with a theme of "Rites of Passage," took place Aug. 29 to Sept. 5, 2011, 120 miles outside Reno, Nev., in the Black Rock Desert, its home since 1990. Some 50,000 people attended the week-long celebration, which is billed as "an annual experiment in temporary community dedicated to radical self-expression and radical self-reliance." The event, which is more a temporary city than a traditional festival, arose from a bonfire held on the Summer Solstice at Baker Beach in San Francisco in which a wooden man a dog were burned in a spontaneous act of self-expression by local artists and their friends. -- Lloyd Young ( 29 photos total