The Spice of Life
Negotiating the local customs and craziness is all part of the creative photography holiday experience and surely it beats any photography course in the UK for a shot in the arm…
Cat and Linda were out this week and as far as activity holidays for ladies go this one surely provided no end of entertainment. Linda, well travelled had yet to visit Morocco and she enjoyed herself immensely, quite the adventurer that she is what with over zealous Hammans with the buckets of water and the kind-hearted attention of the local shopkeepers, her 7 days were full of spice. The two ladies experienced a Henna tattoo each plus some beach photography in some of the strongest winds I’ve experienced here. Linda also started her week with a cooking class.
Rather fittingly Cat was rather keen on the local moggies who aside from sleeping and receiving their generous fishy titbits are numerous in the streets of Essaouira. She also took a shine to Mika at Cafe SidiM’Bark. The cat calendar, which I keep threatening to subject past course attendees to, is nearing its best 10 images of feline dispositions within Essaouira. Cat is currently studying for a degree in art at Bolton University and the galleries here specialising in African art perfectly complemented her emerging photography.
The night with the Gnawa at the Malak Restaurant was one of the week’s highlights with the girls dancing their way into the memories of the staff followed closely by Cat being led astray at the Wednesday country market by one man intent of selling her a necklace. In a case of bad cop even worse cop, the man’s accomplice – he claimed his wife – was more persuasive shall we say. However Cat’s bargaining tools were a match and she snatched a good price for some local silver. 100DH (about £8). Linda and Cat flew BMI and Easyjet respectively and stayed at the Maison du Sud as featured in the Times in August.
Both their galleries can been viewed here.
Post Ramadan and more galleries are coming together in the first few days of September. Jay as seen left produced 4 outstanding galleries of photographs, particularly in architectural subjects and at the fishing port here in Essaouira, probably the best collection of port photos yet. His active participation at the Argan co-operative shows the perils of not using the histogram to check over exposure(note the hotspot on Jay’s shoulder). No fault of Jay, but yours truly. Jay’s work can be seen via this 
A & A can be seen left, entirely unposed! just outside the souk Idagouard which course participants visit on Wednesdays. Increasingly I’m using image manipulation programs, such as Aperture and Photoshop during the week’s course, to demonstrate the possibilities of controlling highlights and what can actually be recovered from an over-exposed image. Understanding what software can achieve, can inform our use of histograms on location and encourage us to expose for the highlights and let the shadows areas fall away into darkness. It’s easier to “bring up’ the shadows than render detail in a “blown out” areas of white. Emma Simpson’s photo from last month, demonstrates what I mean. She exposed correctly for the bright central area which on her camera led to a surrounding solid black area. In post-production we brought up some of the foreground shadow detail offering more interest in the final image as seen right.