Every year, participants in the Burning Man Festival descend on the playa of Nevada's Black Rock Desert to form a temporary city – a self-reliant community populated by performers, artists, free spirits, and more. Last week, an estimated 68,000 people came to Burning Man 2013 from all over the world to dance, express themselves, and take in the spectacle. Gathered below are some of the sights from the festival, which lasted a week and came to its conclusion yesterday

A group of prospective police recruits, ready to be enrolled in the M23 controlled force, salute in the courtyard of a police station in Goma on February 6, 2025. More than a week after the battle for the North Kivu provincial capital, the M23 on Wednesday appointed people to public positions. Goma now has two officials for many public posts – two mayors, two governors – which locals said has created confusion. The M23 administration is still in its embryonic stages and struggling to respond to daily problems in the war-wounded city. (Photo by Michel Lunanga/AFP Photo)

The Azerbaijan-based artist’s mixed-media installations include pieces entitled “Looking at two cities from one point of view”, “Plastik portret” and “Crisis haha”. Alakbarov carefully positions multicolored acrylic planes, packaging materials, and other objects of assorted shapes and then projects light upon then to create shadow images of beautiful beaches, cities, people, and even words.

People in costumes are pictured during the annual Easter Parade and Bonnet Festival on 5th Ave in New York, Sunday, April 9, 2023. (Photo by Yuki Iwamura/AP Photo)

Ave, 4 years-old, of the United States, paints on her father's hand during the International Tattoo Convention Bucharest 2016 in Bucharest, Romania, Sunday, October 16, 2016. Prominent tattoo artists from across the world displayed their skills in the Romanian capital over the weekend. (Photo by Vadim Ghirda/AP Photo)

Kurdish pesh merga troops fire at Islamic State positions as they move toward the Iraqi town of Badana Pichwk on Monday morning, October 17, 2016. Kurdish forces began Monday advancing on a string of villages east of Mosul, the start of a long-awaited campaign to reclaim Iraq's second-largest city from the Islamic State, which seized it more than two years ago, officials said. (Photo by Bryan Denton/The New York Times)

Iraqi government forces are seen near the Falahat village west of Fallujah on June 27, 2016. Iraqi forces took the Islamic State group's last positions in the city of Fallujah on June 26, establishing full control over one of the jihadists' most emblematic bastions after a month-long operation. (Photo by Moadh Al-Dulaimi/AFP Photo)

Prostitutes working on 10th Ave in New York, USA on June 29, 1997. (Photo by Jon Naso/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images)