marrakesh express
19th August 2015
Today is World Photo Day, I never knew there was a day dedicated to this ever growing passion of ours to take great images.
There are special days for everything, ‘doughnut day’ is the first Friday in June and contrary to what you may imagine it has been celebrated since 1938!!! Mail order catalogue day was yesterday and tomorrow is lemonade day!!! The humble chicken gets a whole month in September, each day dedicated to encouraging the world to eat more chicken, why?? but the craziest one I found was ‘talk like a pirate day’ closely followed by ‘take your cat to the vets day’!! what…………………….
So we can pretty much celebrate something everyday of the year, I struggle with Christmas and Birthdays, as my family will pay testament to, so these days are definitely not for me, apart from World Photo Day. I saw it advertised on the Time Out website and thought, that’s a great excuse to do a long overdue blog of images from my recent trip to Morocco today,now. The images interspersed throughout this blog are my attempts at trying to create movement within in an image, something Tim our photographer here at deVOL says is often what makes a shot really great.
I took lots of photos which was lucky as I couldn’t even switch the camera on to start with. It was new and I had promised myself beforehand that I would make a really concerted effort to get a flavour of Morocco on film. I took dozens and dozens of images and although mostly they were average I did have a few favourites. Too many for one blog but this is a small selection from inside the Souks, a place where people don’t really like to be photographed, hence the raised hands and covered faces.
I love Time Out, I get an email everyday and it gives you the low down on all that’s going on in and around London and some odd little facts and stories as well. Yesterday they unveiled a survey showing research on the people of London, it found that people who commute on the tube to work each day are actually happier than people who work leisurely from home and have no stresses or contact with the outside world, I know someone who who would definitely disagree with this!! its strange isn’t it and seems so unlikely but I guess you can just assume that things are bad for you, or stressful, or the reason for your unhappiness, but actually it’s sometimes just mind over matter or something completely different. Last year I decided I would not hate winter because I always do and it spoils 11 months of my year!!! so I just told myself I loved it and I actually did.
In this Time Out survey it suggested that lack of sleep was the biggest cause of unhappiness and having ‘a good nights sleep’ is way more crucial to your happiness than you would ever imagine. So certain things that we may take for granted have more impact on our well-being than some of the things people purposely avoid or actively seek to make them happy. Apparently, cycling to work is a definite ‘happy making’ way to commute, which is good as lots of our deVOL staff cycle to and from work both in Leicestershire and London. I guess this is an obvious finding, but the others are really interesting and made me think, its not always what you think makes you unhappy or unhappy it can be something completely different, it’s just what your mind is telling you and what you have been trained or been taught to think, I love that kind of stuff. I think it’s a great way to bring up kids too, don’t go heavy on the bad stuff, dangers, things you don’t like, and neither will they, anxious, fussy kids can be avoided I’m sure, if you just talk and act positively, pretty sweeping statement I know, but if it works what better education can you give your kids.
Morroco was an amazing place, instantly recognizable from movies and the familiar images of brightly coloured fascinating, exotic, interiors and market scenes that you have all seen so many times before. So its difficult to compete or top that iconic place of beauty and frenetic pace, so I’m not going to try. A paragraph of descriptive words about smells and sights and sounds is not going to cut it and my ability to write in a deeper way than that is not honed as yet. So I will stick to showing some images of ordinary people living in Marrakesh.
I hope what comes across is the contentment of the old men, the classic Moroccan colours of the buildings, the simple way of life and the use of animals as a main mode of transport. All these things were unexpected images for me.
I have loads more lovely photos so I hope to do a part two next week. These horses were so beautiful, trotting up and down the roads in the heat they looked a little under nourished and completely knackered!! but still incredibly elegant.
