Morocco Photo Tour: Portraits and Camels in the Sahara Desert

When visiting Morocco, you have to be prepared for a lot of driving, since the best places to visit are spread out across the country. On this particular day, we were driving from the north, down into the Sahara Desert. It was a full day of driving, but luckily it was broken up with some really fun stops.

Our first stop was unexpected for me, as I did not expect to be photographing monkeys in this country.

There is a "rest area" where the monkeys hang out. I used the Canon R6 MKIII with the RF 100-500mm lens to get in tight. I avoided photographing any monkeys interacting with the people, but chose to wait for them to be in a more natural environment. 

I am always a sucker for the babies. So cute!

This monkey was raising his hand, but he never asked me a question. :)

It was fascinating to drive through so many different terrains. I saw this view as we were driving, and I asked our driver if we could stop for a couple of photos. I love the composition with desert sand and snow covered mountains in the background.

I also asked our driver to stop in this location, as I saw this man herding his sheep. 

I took some photos of him from a distance and then our guide asked if he would come over for a portrait.

After hours of driving, we arrived in the Sahara. It was the first time seeing camels in Morocco, and I had a great time taking portraits of the camels and their owners.

We stopped for lunch and I loved the people who were serving us. Time for more portraits!

For the portraits, I used the Canon R6 MKIII and RF 100-500mm lens once again. 

After lunch, we went to see some local musicians performing in a small room.

I photographed them for a couple of minutes.

They took a break, and we asked this one young man to come over to the window for this portrait, in classic window light.

I also took this portrait of him and his instrument.

Then it was camel time!

We drove around the sand dunes in a four wheel drive vehicle, and stopped to get some photos.

This camel is clearly a fan of my photography!

In the evening, we rode camels up into the sand dunes and I was very excited to get photos of them in the sunset. For this shot, I used the Canon R5 MKII and RF 24-105m lens, positioned myself so that the sun was just at the horizon and shot at f/11 to get the starburst effect.

Our camel guide had a great look, so I had him pose for me in the last bit of sunlight that evening.

I took portraits of Laura and some of the other people who were with us, and then Laura took the camera and captured this image of me.

I asked the guide to walk the camels back and forth in front of the setting sun. We did this numerous times, to get a variety of photos.

This was the last photo before we got back on the camels and headed back down the dunes. I wanted to stay longer, since the sunset just kept getting better and better. Next time we come back in 2028, we will stay out longer.

As we got back down to our camp, I was a little disappointed that we missed such an amazing sunset, but as we walked towards our tent, I saw this one guy up on a hill. I quickly turned my exposure compensation down to -1.7 and grabbed this shot. I showed him the shot and he loved it. He even gave me his WhatsApp number for me to send it to him. I love that! While I was a little disappointed to not get the camels in this light, it turned out to be a great opportunity to capture something different and unexpected.

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