By Simon Cowling.
The great square in the middle of Marrakesh, Morocco. Every evening it becomes a massive throng of food stalls, snake charmers, henna tattooists, palm readers, drummers from the desert regions, holy men, fruit sellers, herbalists, acrobats, magicians, musicians… It’s magical.
Djemaa El Fna, by Simon Cowling
Pentax K20D; Sigma 70-200 f/2.8 zoom lens
The great square in the middle of Marrakesh, Morocco.
Every evening it becomes a massive throng of food stalls, snake charmers, henna tattooists, palm readers, drummers from the desert regions, holy men, fruit sellers, herbalists, acrobats, magicians, musicians, dentists (!) and people with funny hats, all trying to ply their wares and fleece the astonished onlookers.
It’s magical.
This picture gives a small flavour of the atmosphere, with the almost biblical scene in front of a background of food stalls hidden in a haze of cooking smoke.
Don’s response
Simon Cowling’s picture of a marketplace in Morocco gives the viewer a sense of the continuous activity of such places.
It also reveals some of the challenges of picture-taking in crowded, low light conditions. You can’t control where people direct their gaze, so it’s generally necessary to take quite a few shots to pick the one in which the crowd is most photogenic.
In this particular instance, it appears that perhaps finding a bigger opening onto the intriguing lighted stalls in the background might have brought the picture ‘together’ more effectively.
