Morocco 2010: Marrakech Movement, Colours and Textures

Vanalinn, or Tallinn Old Town is a place with bags of character, exemplified by the near ubiquitous red tiles and bricks that give the buildings a unique 'glow'. I tend to gravitate to Black & White, but this city demanded to be shot in colour.

Late afternoon we arrived in the city of Rabat and our destination The Mausoleum of Mohammed V, which shares the ground with Hassan Tower. The changing colours of the polished surfaces due to the reflected light from the overhead clouds and a sun that was now lowering in the sky brought to mind the Taj Mahal in Agra where I had watched the same phenomena

A beautifully intricate mausoleum in Meknes dedicated to Sultan Moulay Isma'il, who ruled Morocco from 1672 - 1727.

It's the second time I've been here and the second time I've come away feeling a bit uninspired. I feel it shows in my photography. Looking online at other peoples images, the best take a very low angle with an ultrawide in courtyards and either a closed venue or a hell of a lot of digital erasure of other visitors. Of both my times in Morocco, this is the place I've struggled to capture.

I went to Valencia in for the conclusion of the 2017 MotoGP World Champions, but got a little time the day after the race before my evening flight home. It's a city I'm going to have to return to in order to see more of the city itself. The Museu de les Ciències is where I spent most of my time. As well as being an outstanding museum, it is a photographers paradise. Full of leading lines and abstract angles.

Some days it just all goes wrong. This was one of them. I'd been working in Chennai on a secondment and was coming to the end of my time there, where I'd have a couple of weeks to myself. This was the first place I visited, and promptly began feeling sick about 10 minutes after arriving. It was a scorching day, and I'd arrived with the sun at it's highest. I dragged myself around the complex for a single lap stopping as many times to throw up as I did to take a photo, before collapsing into the rear seat of the hotel car for the long ride home.

I had big plans for film photography in Morocco. I took 5 weird and wonderful films with me. I got to shoot 1 and a half. It turns out that cameras are not happy if you drop them in streams. Lomo Purple is a odd film at the best of times. It is even odder when soaked in river water and coated in silt and debris!