Jackson Hole, Wyo.-At most events in Jackson Hole, a bearded man with long hair walks around the crowd taking pictures. He often wears a rainbow suit, tie-dyed overalls or a sequined Santa costume.

If you watch him closely, you’ll see that most people know him. Girls stop to give him hugs and guys stop to give him high fives . . . as well as hugs. And many of those people will check their computer the next day to see what their friend, Andrew Wyatt, captured the night before.

But when Wyatt isn’t documenting Jackson Hole culture, he is traveling around the country taking photographs of music and art festivals, which foster a culture that Wyatt says is his main passion in life. Often a free ticket is his only payment.

On his way to his dream of supporting himself through photography, Wyatt self-published a black-and-white coffee-table book from the Burning Man festival in the Nevada desert, where tens of thousands of people live in a communal artistic and social experiment for seven days. 

He has a knack for capturing moments of celebration. From the rich social fodder at Burning Man, where costumed participants navigate a huge city of art installations and dance parties, Wyatt captured the powerful, personal moments. The photos always force the question “What the hell is going on here?” 

The book, “Beyond the Burn,” which is available at www.blurb.com, presents some of Wyatt’s best work. 

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Planet Jackson Hole Weekly: Why did you choose these Burning Man photos for your first book?

Andrew Wyatt: I’ve always wanted to do a Burning Man coffee-table book, and since it’s a festival known for its color, I thought it would be an interesting spin to go for a black-and-white book for my first book, as opposed to the full-color imagery that people would expect.

PJH: Why do you like to photograph Burning Man?

AW: The trick of Burning Man is to keep yourself from taking photos of Burning Man, actually, because it is truly the most unique cultural experience of the developed western world, and documenting that photographically is pretty much a no-brainer, really.

PJH: Can you explain your style of dress? How, when and why did you start dressing that way?

AW: I don’t know, I remember the first music festival I ever went to, which was in 2001 and I wasn’t yet photographing, and I just happened to see the way people dress and I just knew, instantly, I’m wearing khaki pants and an Izod shirt, and I’m like, “Wow, I want to be wearing that.”

And now, almost my entire wardrobe is stuff I collected at festivals, actually.

PJH: So… khaki’s and an Izod, huh? Were you preppy back then?

AW: Yeah, I would say so. Well, I wouldn’t say preppy because I’ve always had a beard but I definitely had a mainstream appearance – short hair and khakis.

PJH: How did it feel, to change your style of dress so drastically?

AW: It was love at first sight. I think I went up to a booth that had tie-dyed overalls and was like, “how much,” and bought a pair and immediately changed out of my garb.

PJH: Did having a new style change things for you? Like the way you interacted with the world?

AW: Well, I mean, I definitely stopped applying for office jobs after that. But, I mean, as soon as I put my first pair of overalls on, I just knew. I was at home in my clothing and it was the first time felt that way. It really was like that first pair of overalls was saying to me, “Welcome home.” 

PJH: What brought you to Jackson?

AW: I just came out because I had never seen the mountains. I had never seen wildlife.

Moving here was actually the crossroads moment to my life, I had just finished seminary, and I was actually going to take a church in southern Virginia and my parents already had furniture picked out for the parsonage I was going to live in. I was working at Jenny Lake Lodge, and I’d go on hikes everyday and be among the moose and the paintbrush wildflower meadows, and I couldn’t come home. I made a phone call one day, that was in 1994, and I said “I can’t come home.” That was all I knew. I didn’t know what was happening, I just knew I couldn’t come home and that’s what I said. And I couldn’t preach, you know, because religion became such a much bigger thing than I had known. It was such a narrow thing that only had one single expression … then it became something much broader.

And then after that, I just became really itinerant. I would travel around a lot. I spent a winter in Death Valley, California, I had a really pleasant experience there … and I lived in San Francisco, then I lived in Asheville, North Carolina, and then I came back out here. 

PJH: When did you become a photographer?

AW: I just bought a camera and started going to Old West Days, and Teton County fair, because I wanted to document people doing their everyday stuff. And that alone was just like … it gave you a sense of what people are like when they are unguarded.

That’s something that happens whether you are at the Teton County Fair or whether you are at Burning Man or whether you are at the Ten Thousand Lakes Fest in Minnesota – that is something that man, woman and child each share and that’s when they are at their best.

PJH: So that’s part of your style then, is that you are trying to be unguarded in your work?

AW: Yeah. There are as many people photographing me at these festivals as the other way around, I literally am a part of it. I might be photographing a guy wearing neon ski goggles and a pink tutu, but I’m wearing a sequined Santa Suit, you know? So it’s all about, you know, becoming the element that you seek to be a part of. 

PJH: Does Jackson have enough of that unguardedness and joy that you thrive on?

AW: I still go shoot the ’49er ball. Because they like who I am, you know, and I’ve actually showed up in my tie-dyed jumpsuit to the ’49er ball before, and what was awesome about it is I had a number of people come up to me and say, ‘we wouldn’t have wanted you to show up in anything else.’ And, maybe that is why I survive in this town. 

One of my favorite moments was at Old West Days, and I was wearing a full-on hippie outfit and I ran into the Sheriff at the time, Bob Zimmer, and I was wearing this crazy patchwork hat and I was like, “Bob, you know what I think would be really cool, is if you let me take a photo of you with my hat on’ and he looked at me for a second and tugged on his moustache and he thought about it for a second, and said, “Ah, what the hell, okay.” I don’t know with how many other sheriffs of how may other towns that would happen.

PJH: I thought your answer to that question would have something to do with the music/party culture you are a part of here, but I guess it ripples through the entire town?

AW: You know, it really does. There is kind of a vein of individuality and self-expression that is a part of Western cowboy culture, but particularly in Jackson, Wyoming. You’re just not going to find other places where cowboys do rub elbows with hippies. PJH

Photo Andrew Wyatt