Sunbeam Marrakech Souk

Pretty happy with this one when it came out; I skipped lunch to have a look at the souq as the sun was quite high and should have been right for creating sunbeams. The only tricky part then was to find the right place with just the right number of people and room to put my tripod down, which is not that easy in such as busy place as Marrakech.

In addition, the Lonely Planet states that Moroccans rate tourists in order of gullibility, with the Japanese heading the list. Talk about bees around honey... "Hey Japan Japan!"; "Konnichiwa! Konnichiwa!"

"Je suis anglais" et "je suis chinois" didn't really convince anyone. However, I have to say that once people realised that no, I didn't need a carpet weighing two times my baggage allowance or a silver teapot, they would chat to you instead and have a look at what you were doing in a friendly manner.

This was the second best shot I should have taken - the best one unfortunately had the rather large posterior of a lady in it which unbalanced the frame. Long exposure time to get the sunbeam and dark souk interior lit. The point sources of light also show the eight bladed apeture of the lens.

5.0s at f/22 28 mm ISO 100

Berber and camel, Erg Chebbi, Sahara Desert

This was taken in the Moroccan Sahara, in Erg Chebbi, the morning after the Camel Shadows photo. I got up at dawn, around 0600, and the desert was pretty cold. My aim was to climb up this massive dune near our camp but after getting up about three quareters of the way up it was too steep and I kept slipping down. The dawn was OK (clouds came in of course) but before the light got too intense I saw this man and camel walking in the distance to the south, an excellent reference to the scale of the dunes.

Sahara Desert

A different desert: taken on a camel in Erg Chebbi, Morocco. Erg Chebbi is in East Morocco and is the main example of large dunes in the Saharan Morocco. Camel Shadows taken at sunset, handheld on a walking camel 1/100 s f/16.