Marrakech for photographers: where the light is, and the etiquette

Marrakech is an easy city to photograph badly. Ochre walls under a midday sun flatten to nothing, and the pictures that everyone comes home with are the pictures everyone comes home with.

The light

Two windows, and they are short.

Early morning, from first light to about nine. The lanes are still in shadow but the upper walls are lit, the streets are working rather than performing, and there is almost nobody in your frame.

The last hour before sunset, when the ochre finally does what people say it does. Rooftops are the place to be. In winter you also get the Atlas behind, which is rare in summer haze.

Between eleven and four the light is vertical and unkind. That is the time for interiors, courtyards and shaded lanes, which is what a riad is for.

Where to walk

• Around Bab Doukkala and the northern medina, early, for street life rather than sights
• The tanneries, for texture, though be clear that the “guide” who attaches himself to you at the entrance is a transaction, not a courtesy
• The Mellah and the spice market, in the morning, for colour
• Any rooftop facing the Koutoubia at the end of the day
• Agafay, late afternoon, for landscape — bare hills that go gold and nothing man-made in the frame

The etiquette, which matters

Photographing people without asking causes real friction here, and in the square it is a straightforward transaction: performers and stallholders expect payment, and the argument afterwards is worse than the picture is good.

Ask. A gesture at the camera and a raised eyebrow does it. Some say no, and that is that. The ones who say yes give you something far better than a stolen shot, because they look at the lens.

Avoid photographing women without explicit permission, and do not photograph inside mosques, which non-Muslims cannot enter in Morocco anyway.

A practical note

Carry small change. The interaction is smoother when you are not producing a two-hundred dirham note and asking for change, which turns a gesture into a negotiation.