After seeing the sights in Casablanca, our driver (Rachid) and guide (Ali) took us to the city of Rabat. Before visiting Morocco, I would have guessed that the capital city of Morocco would be Casablanca or Marrakesh, but I would have been wrong. The capital city is actually Rabat.
As we drove into Rabat, we were surprised to see such modern architecture, buildings like the Grand Theatre which is a very cool looking structure.
The tallest building in Africa is also located in Rabat. You can see the tower in the background of this photo. It was just completed this year and soars above everything else in the city (and continent for that matter). In the foreground of this image, you see the Chella, which is a medieval fortified building from the 14th century. I found a position in between two bushes where I could capture the old and new in one photo. For all the wide shots, I was using my Canon R5 Mark II camera with the RF 24-105mm f/4 lens.
At the entry to the Chella was this drummer who was hamming it up for us tourists. I grabbed a couple of photos of him before we moved on.
Once we looked around the outside of the Chella, our guides took us up to the Mausoleum of Muhammed V. As we approached the entryway, we saw two guards along the wall. There were some tourists taking photos of the guards, and all of them were taking photos straight on to guards and horses. The background was really not great and I thought that there must be a better composition here. I always look for something different than the typical shot. I noticed that both of the Royal Moroccan Guards could be captured from the side position, and had a really nice background. I grabbed the Canon R6 Mark III, with the RF 100-500mm lens and focused on the first guard at 400mm. I took numerous images, waiting for both guards and both horses to be head up and in similar positions. I showed this to our guide and he was surprised to see a photo from this location, and he really loved it. Since he was surprised to see the photo taken from this location, it made me feel good, that I found something a little different.
This is the typical wide shot that you see of the mausoleum. It shows the Hassan Tower and the ruins surrounding it. It is nice to have, but very commonplace.
Our guide, Ali, sat down right in front of me, providing the perfect subject for this door shot.
As is true for most of the structures in Morocco, the mosaic work is stunning, and needed to be captured.
I walked up the steps to the mausoleum and saw this ornate brass lantern along the edge of the steps. I turned around and took this photo, using the lantern as the main subject and the Hassan Tower as the supporting subject. I took this photo at f/4 (focusing on the lantern) making it sharper in focus than the tower. This helps the viewer know what my main subject is.
There were many Royal Guards around the property. I lined myself up so that the guard was centered on the doorway behind him.
Inside the mausoleum was a small room covered in beautiful mosaic patterns. I saw guards standing in each corner and wanted to get a shot of them, but it was pretty dark inside. I cranked the ISO of the Canon R5 Mark II up to 2500 and held on as steady as I could with the 1/15 sec exposure.
I really like this photo, showing both the amazing architecture and the royal guard.
For the remainder of the day, we made our way to the blue city of Chefchaoen. Speaking of amazing architecture, this was our riad in Chefchaoen. It was so pretty that I had to take out the Canon RF 7-14mm fisheye lens to grab some shots of the interior foyer of the riad. This was the view from the door to our room.
This was the view inside the room. It was so nice!
If you think this was cool to see, just wait for the next blog post showing the famous "Blue City" of Chefchaoen!
One more thing... I am planning on leading a photo tour to Morocco in March of 2028. I already have 6 people on the list, and room for 6 more. Final details have not been released yet, but I am adding info on the photo tour page HERE. Let me know if you are interested in seeing this amazing country with me in 2028.
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