In the Fall of 2017, I traveled to Morocco to study its language and culture, and in doing so, was given an inside view of life in this Kingdom. During the semester, I set out to capture Morocco through my camera, from its grand cities to its quaint villages and its amazing nature. What I hope to have captured through my photographs is not the “tourists’ image” of Morocco; not the snake charmers of Marrakesh, or the monkey tamers of Tangier. I hope to have taken a look just one thin layer deeper, to describe a Morocco that does not pander to tourists' expectations. I did not want to photograph Berbers, I wanted to see the Amazighen people and just a bit of their lives. I do not want to mimic the Morocco of “yesteryear;” the idea of a Moroccan way of life that has been overly romanticized in western media. Times have undeniably changed, and the past can only be glimpsed in the solitude of nature and in one's own imagination.
One might argue that the snake charmer or the monkey tamer is now, in 2017, just as much a part of Moroccan culture as the butcher in the medina or the fisherman on the pier. While I do agree with this, these aspects must be noted as an economic shift, and not a piece of the culture that has always been a part of the Maghreb. Low employment and other socioeconomic factors have lately pushed many Moroccan workers to informal sectors of employment, most notable the tourism industry. In other words, there would be no snake charmers if there were no tourists watching. I have attempted to highlight a couple of the industries that have shifted from former cultural practices to modern tourist attractions. In the end, every visitor in Morocco sees the snake charmer, they have no choice but to at least glance quickly to avoid being drawn in for a paid photo, but I wanted to venture outside of the guided tours and take a closer look at the true colors of Morocco and the aspects of culture that exist outside of or behind the tourism market.
Nothing about this project is entirely honest, nor are any of the images. I have picked and chosen not only which images to take, but which to include in this collection. Every image went through some color and light adjustments, and some take a more abstract view than anything that could be seen by the naked eye. A motif in these photos is that in images portraying a human subject, they are not making eye contact with me or the camera (with a single exception). During my time in Morocco I had plenty of time to interact with its wonderful people, but while photographing my goal was always to be unnoticed, for becoming a part of the scene as a photographer, visitor, and tourist visibly different from the locals meant breaking the candidness of the subject and the intimacy of the moment. But these images are not lies. In their abstraction, surreality, and dishonest nature is a sense of reality that an honest, 50mm, eye level photo could not portray. I hope, as any photographer does, to have captured a sense of the feeling of experiencing these places, and the sense of wonder of being somewhere completely new. While even four months is not enough time to deeply understand Morocco, I hope to share a view of what I was able to observe and learn about this unparalleled country.
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A quintessential place to begin any account of Morocco is with its iconic mosaics. Mosaic fountains, like this one found in El Jardin Andalus in Rabat, are a staple of Moroccan architecture dating back hundreds of years. The lack of representative art in Islamic culture pushes the intricacy of architecture. The result can be seen not only in the most lavish mosques and palaces but just as commonly in small gardens and medina (old quarter) homes.
Behind every mosaic, there is a talented craftsman. While in Tangier, we came across this man working in a small tile shop along the northern edge of the Kasbah. He welcomed us into his small shop and was eager to show us his trade and how he used his chisel to work his tiles little by little to get exactly the shape that will fit into his mosaics. This piece eventually became a small heart as a gift for my girlfriend, which he was thrilled to present.
While the craftsman industry has largely expanded to serve the tourism industry in Morocco, it still represents an important aspect of Moroccan culture that employs many people in the large cities. While the Fes Tanneries have existed for a millenium, only recently have they become geared towards tourism. Today the tanneries use dyes made up of more unnatural chemicals than in the past, and city tours take visitors to bargain in leather shops with balconies overlooking the tanneries. Once the rest of my tour group had gone back inside, I was able to snap these shots of the tanners going about their normal work.
Similarly to the tanners of Fes, the vast dunes of Erg Chebbi in the Sahara Desert harken back to a long lost age, but have today become a tourist attraction. The local economy in nearby Merzouga is almost entirely oriented towards tourists, mostly from Spain and France but increasingly from China. At sunset, one cannot avoid seeing camel trains, sandboarders, ATV riders, and other visitors stopping to enjoy the view from the dune peaks. To avoid the rush of tourism and a tight schedule, I booked a nearby hotel and hiked in each day, which allowed for a somewhat removed perspective of much of the tourism that occurs in the Moroccan Sahara.
During a tour of Tétouan, in Morocco's Riffi north, we were given a glimpse inside a Khobs bakery. Khobs, the Arabic word for bread, is a staple of both Moroccan cuisine and culture. Khobs is seen as sacred and when it needs to be discarded, it is always given its own separate disposal container. It is used to eat most meals in lieu of utensils, and thanks to government subsidies, is kept affordable for even some of the poorest Moroccans. During the Arab Spring uprisings in 2011, these subsidies played a major role in calming the protests.
Hanuts, or corner stores in Darija, are the basic one-stop-shop for most everyday needs in Morocco no matter which city you find yourself in. All hanuts are stocked full of snacks, sodas, and sandwiches. Many urban Moroccan families, especially those living in the medina, have "their" hanut to which they are loyal, and that is identified not by store name (they have none) but by the name of the owner. Note the stack of disk-shaped Khobs on the counter.
The medina of Fes, when viewed from above, provides an entirely outside perspective of the life down below. The tight, covered alley ways are entirely invisible from this angle, and the sense of disorientation and confusion can be understood more than any street level photo could portray.
Often times, the medinas of Moroccan cities are themselves a tourist attraction despite being very much in use by the citizens who live and work there. Here, in Tétouan, a girl calls to me to not photograph her and her mother (who ducked away) while they walk down the street. As soon as I took this frame I put my camera away, and apologized and explained myself to them in Spanish as they passed. They did not have a problem or request that I delete the photo, so I have decided to share it here.
The streets of any Moroccan medina are also home to open air food markets carrying a variety of staples of Moroccan cuisine. Olives, a regional crop and a widely used delicacy, can be found in many different varieties in medina shops like this one in Fes. While open air markets like this harken back to the past, the shop owner's use of a smartphone unmistakably anchors this photo in the digital age.
In preparation for a celebration of the Islamic New Year, a Fassi Butcher displays a camel's head for sale in his medina shop. Morocco is a predominantly Islamic nation, and Islamic traditions are widely celebrated. While in Fes for the weekend, we saw many animals ready for slaughter and sale in the medina, including plenty of select camel parts to celebrate the New Year.
Another iconic piece of Moroccan culture is its plentiful mosques. The uniquely prism-shaped design is shared between all Moroccan minarets, both urban and rural, and presentes a stark contrast to the traditionally cylindrical minarets of the Levant. Islam has had a profound effect on Moroccan art, among other things, over the centuries. At the intersection of art and religion, Moroccan mosques traditionally display a high level of architectural intricacy, making them some of the most exceptional and beautiful structures in the world.
While the Hassan II Mosque sits proudly along the Casablanca shoreline, for many Moroccans, its looming scale and lavishness represent a dark history. King Hassan II, for who the mosque is named, was an authoritarian king and was responsible for numerous grave human rights violations against the Moroccan people. Even in his later years, he took from the poorest rural communities through taxation to fund this mosque in his name.
Outside of its cities, Morocco's natural beauty is a thing of wonder. Despite striving for a unique perspective, it is impossible to not consider Bowles' The Sheltering Sky when walking alone through the Sahara Desert by night, as its natural wonder and overwhelming silence have remained unchanged for thousands of years. With nearly no man-made lights around, the endless desert provides an unhindered view our own Milky Way galaxy, and the moonlit dunes give it the aura of a science fiction film.
North of the vast desert, a different kind of natural beauty is visible in the lush valleys and rocky peaks of the Rif Mountains. Many places have been capitalized upon by the tourism industry, for both domestic and international visitors. A common tourism practice along Morocco's plentiful mountain streams is to allow hikers to rest, sip tea, and kick back with their feet in the water.
As always, no action is without consequence. As is the case with many nations in the developing world, education regarding environmental issues lacks as the state targets issues more immediately affecting the population. Despite hosting the COP22 international environmental summit in 2016, there is still an apparent lack of awareness of the negative effects of littering, both in cities and in rural areas. Pictured, a lawn chair set (presumably once used as in the previous photo) awaits a quiet, slow decomposition at the bottom of a water reservoir in Akchour.
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Despite the ecological and developmental problems that must be solved going forward, Morocco holds a unique charm in its cities and its nature that is quite unlike any other place in the world. The vast variations in cultural and geographical landscape, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea, and from the Rif Mountains to the Sahara Desert, offer a wide variety of people, places, and things to see and and even broader range of experiences to explore. It has been an incredible privilege to take such a close look at this magical place rich in culture and allure, and I hope to have done it justice in these photos.
The rest of the images simply display the beauty of Morocco through its people, sights, and nature. No captions are necessary.
All images on this page are copyright © John Rossi. All rights reserved.