We traveled to Marrakesh; a first excursion into Morocco. Spending five days there was a bit much I’ve learned. Photographically it is a challenging atmosphere. The locals around the medina are strongly anti-photo, anti-photographer. They really don’t want to be photographed. Often the locals will demand a payment for a photo. I some level I can understand this; the proliferation of the cell phone snap and social media has commoditized images to the extent that the people start feeling objectified and part of a profit making scheme in which they receive no share.
In photographing around the area, I accepted the challenge of excluding people from my photos. Working with the contrast between the archaic and new (not necessarily modern) I started to find a vision. The chaos, crowds, and energy would normally feed my photography but here with the constraints of no people in photos it took a lot of time to bring the vision. The constant badgering by hawkers, touts, and grifters made focusing on making images subject to constant distraction.
My take in eight photos of Marraskesh.
