MAROCCO

THE SHOOTING WEEKEND

Usually my trips are not like this one; mainly I travel alone and even most of the times I visit the main touristic places I try to do it in the most independent way as possible. However, this time the plan was different: a group of friends on a 4-days weekend in Morocco.

From a (street) photographical point of view I knew it was going to be difficult, let me explain why:

During the planning of the trip we managed two alternatives:

Option 1: Two days in Marrakesh and two days in Fez

Option 2: Go to the desert (meaning almost 3 day’s bus trip) and spend 1 day in Fez in our way back.

Of course, the crowd decided and Option 2 was the way to go. All said, the departure date arrived and we flew to Marrakesh on a Friday nigh.

The trip

I knew I’d have very little time to “work” on street photography; just one day in Fez. The rest of the time we were going to be traveling, visiting few touristic attractions or in the desert.

Fez

Fez leather tannery

The first two days until we arrived in the desert were nothing special. The bus was stopping here and there and we were thrown into places just to take a picture and go. As conditions were not good for landscape photography and I do not like to take pictures of empty streets, random buildings or monuments, I aimed my camera to my colleagues most of the time.

Leire and Judith in marocco

Leire and Judith posing

test

Marta enjoying the shadow

Selfies in morocco

The stolen selfie

Every time I was shooting I knew this would involve some color editing, technique which I do not master. I had to spend so much time editing these pictures and still don’t feel 100% satisfied with the result.

Many pictures I got have beautiful colors and contrasts, but many others were taken during the worst light hours of the days (12 – 16pm). These were not that colorful and lacked vividness, so during the post processing I had to go through another unknown path for me, the matte style.

Marta

Marta, what’s wrong?

The Desert

Camel ride moroccoFew kilometres went by and finally we arrived to the desired destination: the desert. Just one afternoon to get the picture that should represent this post. The picture of the desert, the place where there is nothing should give me everything.

But, how?

First thing in the afternoon we went on the camel ride. This was a good opportunity where most iconic subjects from our idea of a desert were in front of us: The camels, the Berbers and the sand. Few pictures were good, but nothing impressive.

Our moral kept complaining about the activity as the camels walk up and down the whole day, picking and dropping tourists as if they were a bus. We learnt that these type of activities should be re-considered before booking a trip as they are questionable from an animal’s freedom point of view.

In the late afternoon we were taken to the tents where we were going to spend the night and given some free time to walk around the sand dunes. Even though it was being a great trip, with very good vives and lots of fun, I was a little bit discouraged because I felt I did not get any good picture yet.

Moreover, there were no clouds in the sky, all the dunes had already footprints and the camels were too far or gone, so my sunset picture was not going to be good either.

Without expectations, I picked my camera from my tent and found a green scarf just close to it; as it was windy, I thought it could work.

Leire desert

Leire, the wind and the scarf

test

Judith, the wind and the scarf

Also, after too much editing (for my taste), I could rescue few of the pictures during the sunset (and I’ve just found out that actually there were coulds yes xD):

Desert sunset photo

A couple in the desert

Feznally in Fez:

After sleeping in the desert tents (which actually included all the amenities) we jumped into our last long drive, 7 hours to Fez. We arrived in the late afternoon, and spent the night and half of the following day walking around the world’s largest medina.

I find it very difficult to perform my best in street photography when there are two factors: little time and not being alone. This time, I was playing in the worst-case scenario, and the outcome has been the expected one.

I have no good street photography pictures to share.

I’m sorry if the post has disappointed you, but I have a quite clear idea of what pictures I do like, and what pictures I do not, and I’m not posting them if I don’t feel I do like them.

This kind of things are the ones that make you realize there is always margin to improve in photography, no matter what you have done before.

Well, actually, let me share a very funny one:

Fez street photography

The picture

The detail

Thanks for reading!

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2020-02-10T18:17:39+01:00
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