Atlas Light: A Photographer's Journey from Marrakech to the Drâa Valley
The light changes twice on the road south from Marrakech, and both times faster than expected. A photographer's account of the High Atlas passes, the earthen kasbahs and the longest palm grove in Morocco.
The light changes twice on the road south from Marrakech, and both times it happens faster than you expect. The first is at the top of the Tizi n'Tichka, at 2,260 metres, where the haze of the Haouz plain drops away below and the air becomes suddenly, aggressively clear. The second is somewhere past Agdz, where the Drâa valley opens and everything acquires the particular red that photographers come here for and struggle to explain afterwards.
It is not a filter and it is not the hour. It is iron oxide in the dust, a very dry atmosphere, and a landscape built almost entirely from pisé — rammed earth, dug from the ground it stands on, which means every wall is the exact colour of the valley floor.
The hours that work
The conventional advice about golden hour is misleading here, because the useful window is longer and the difficult one is wider. From about ten in the morning to four in the afternoon the light is flat, white and directly overhead, and earthen architecture under it looks like nothing — no shadow in the wall texture, no separation between building and ground.
What works is the forty minutes after sunrise and the ninety before sunset, and then, crucially, the twenty minutes after the sun has gone. Blue hour in the Drâa is not the cool blue of northern latitudes; the sky goes deep and the earth walls hold warmth from the day, and the colour contrast between them is the single best thing available on the whole route.
Aït Benhaddou, and the problem with it
The ksar at Aït Benhaddou is the most photographed structure in Morocco and it deserves to be — stacked earthen houses rising up a hillside above a river, with the granary at the top. It is also, from about ten in the morning, full of coaches, and the classic view from the far bank has a queue in front of it.
Sleep on the far side of the river and shoot at dawn. The village is empty, the light rakes across the west face, and the river is usually low enough to cross on the stepping stones. By nine you can be back for breakfast and gone before the first bus.
Earthen architecture under midday sun looks like nothing. The whole valley is a texture, and texture needs an angle.
South to Zagora and beyond
The Drâa proper begins at Agdz and runs southeast through a near-continuous palm grove — the longest in Morocco, more than 200 kilometres of it, punctuated by kasbahs in every state from restored to melting. Tamnougalt is the best preserved of the old ones. Timiderte and Igdaoun are quieter and largely unvisited.
The famous sign at Zagora — Timbuktu, 52 days by camel — is a replica, and the original point was serious: this was a departure point for trans-Saharan caravans. Beyond Zagora the palms thin and at M'Hamid the tarmac ends and the erg begins.
Photographing people, which is the hard part
The Drâa is not a landscape with people incidentally in it; it is farmed, irrigated and lived in by families who have been there for centuries and who have been photographed a great deal without being asked. The standard practice — long lens, no eye contact, no permission — produces images that are technically fine and ethically indefensible.
Ask. In Moroccan Arabic or French, with the camera down. You will be refused sometimes, and the refusal is the answer. When you are not refused you will usually end up drinking tea for an hour, which slows the day down and produces better photographs than the alternative, because a portrait made with someone rather than of them looks different and everyone can tell.
Practicalities for a camera
Dust is the enemy. Change lenses inside the car with the engine off, or not at all — a two-body setup is worth the weight here more than almost anywhere. Sensor cleaning in Ouarzazate is possible and in the valley is not.
Go between October and April. Summer light is brutal, the heat past Zagora is genuinely dangerous, and the palms look tired. February and March give you almond blossom in the High Atlas on the way down and a green fringe along the Drâa, which is the combination the valley is at its best in.
Sara shoots on assignment across four continents and develops half of it on film. Her long-term project on harvest seasons — coffee, saffron, olives, rice — has been exhibited at Visa pour l’Image in Perpignan.