ADVENTURE PHOTOGRAPHY

This Adventure photography experience is about using photography’s unique language to visualise a story.  You’ll get to spend time photographing Berber tribes both in Nomad communities and in mud-brick fortified villages.  Through your own sensibilities, thoughts and understanding of the locations and people, you’ll carve out a set of images that resonant beyond individual image highlights.

They’ll be framing and lighting successes but it’s more about how the photos knit together, constructing the story day by day in your mind, not at the end of the week.

Before you arrive, you’ll be expected to read up and view photographic examples of historical and contemporary approaches to ethnic groups as well as literature and writing, Moroccan based or otherwise, that can be a vehicle to inform your approach.

SKILLS ACQUIRED AT THE END OF THE WEEK

*  Learn how to photographically interpret intimate spaces.

*  Being confident and getting creative control with subjects.

*  Noticing and realising different qualities of light to create a feeling.

*  Build a portfolio that interweaves people and places consistently & coherently.

*  How to see single images as part of a narrative set.

*  Understand the political nuances in photographing people and how you can shape that interpretation.

These three location workshops are for you to build a sequence of images to be viewed as a narrative. It’s about visual storytelling and should be based on your own interpretation of these locations.  You’ll be encouraged to go beyond competently recording and instead develop a final portfolio of 12-15 images with some creative flair, which leads viewers to reach an emotional connection.  Moreover, it will be about developing a set of images that reflects a specific something about desert & mountain life.

Reportage or social documentary photography can often lack a creative subjective viewpoint.  The best work in this field integrates the ‘art’ and the social.  Through these workshops you’ll be developing subjective responses to social settings, balancing social awareness whilst fulfilling your creative interests.  Part of this includes manipulating your images through adjusting exposure and colour tone to create a specific feel.

The first location is situated in the Atlas Mountains where nomads spend some of their years. Our comfortable base is close to their camps.  This is adventure photography with proper mattresses!  Location two is within the desert less than an hour’s drive away; an oasis mud-brick fortified village which is visually striking.

Through the cultivation of contacts over several years, both locations provide subjects who are comfortable allowing photographers either into their home or camp, to allow time in finessing portraits.  You will have the window of opportunity to control lighting, think about scale and context and how you want to portray them.

Moreover, you’ll be alert to details and objects which contribute to the narrative and how they interrelate.  You’ll be encouraged to find your own personal connection to the places and to work along with that trail.  With each day’s review, we’ll keep a check on how your images are sitting in reference to other published work and if you’re on course to hit any previously agreed targets.

Please note that this workshop is only available to participants of an acceptable standard which will be based on a review of the individual’s work.  Social media, a personal website or Flickr etc. are all accepted sources for review but booking is dependent on demonstrating a competent level of photography.  It’s likely that participants have taken courses or workshops in the past, have been active in their respective camera clubs, or have a long-standing relationship with photography either in a professional context or as a serious amateur.  Above all, using your camera will be second nature to you, allowing 100% engagement with the subject and composition.

Day One – Arrival day in Marrakesh 

LOCATION ONE – NOMADS – INTIMATE PORTRAITS, EPIC & DETAILS

Day Two

10:30am – 6:30pm

The day begins with a journey through the Atlas mountains from Marrakesh to Todra Gorge.  We’ll be stopping by Ait Benhaddou for lunch with an opportunity to begin photographing, before continuing on to our first destination hotel.

Group dinner

Darren will introduce his own images from the two locations and explain the plan for the week including looking at examples of portrait work and how to compose epic views. 

Day Three

9.00am – 12:00pm

A short drive or walk from our base hotel to a nomad camp.

12.00pm – 4.00pm

Lunch is followed by an initial review of images.  Based on feedback from Darren, participants will make a plan of what and how to shoot for the early evening excursion.

4.00pm – 7:00pm

The second of the day’s nomad camp workshops.  This will either be a return to the morning family or to a new camp based on the group’s overall wishes.

Group dinner. Discussion and feedback on how the day went.

Day Four

9.00am – 7:00pm

In format and timing, this will be a reprise of the previous day.  Both days will be about creating an overall individual visual approach in relation to the scale, details, and tone of portraits and what the image collection is trying to say.

By the end of the second day, you will have made photographs at two or three family locations.

LOCATION TWO – MUD BRICK KSAR – INTIMATE PORTRAITS, MOOD & INTERIORS

Day Five

10:00am – 11:00am

We’ll relocate to the second location at Elkhorbat, 45 minutes away, where after a short guided tour, the afternoon is spent finalising and processing images of the nomad locations. Then a final sequencing of images is followed by a group view.

5:00pm – 6:30pm

A second, more extended guided tour of the village is followed by a group dinner.

Day Six

9:30am – 12:30pm

Initial shooting on location in and around the village.

2:00pm – 4:00pm

Post lunch participants will organise their morning images into a rough sequence for group feedback. Afterwards, with Darren, you’ll develop an outline plan of your approach for the location.  There are two local female residents who can be photographed allowing some degree of time and crafting.  The first of which is available from 4.00 pm.

4:00pm – 7:00pm

Participants on-location shooting.

7:30pm – 8:30pm

Group dinner

8:30pm – 10:30pm

Review of the afternoon’s images.

Day Seven

9.30am – 12:30pm

The second of the two available subjects are available during the morning.  Participants to continue taking their final photographs.

2:00pm – 5:00pm

Processing, editing and sequencing in consultation with Darren.

5:00pm – 6:00pm

The final group presentation.

Day Eight

9.00am – 4:00pm. Depart for Marrakesh in time for evening flights.

The final selected images will be uploaded to your own personal portfolio gallery.

Equipment required:

A laptop loaded with photo processing software that you can use to a basic level.

DSLR or mirrorless camera with a standard – telephoto zoom lens + prime lens.

A link to Darren’s profile.

This adventure photography experience runs in spring and autumn priced at USD 2100 / £1900.  April 2024 is now available from the 13th – 20th.