Tints and Shades of Grey

Veyre, I think this interior now hosts the Museum of Moroccan Art in Marrakech. The image is grainy and there isn't very much light, but I think it demonstrates how susceptible to Black and White the Arabic aesthetic is.

Flandrin, here the photographer is playing with light. There is a sense in Morocco of being closed in, of grates and Henna patterns which bar against light so these glimmers are poignant.

At the beginning of the summer (the summer that gets further and further away) I went on a little trip with some friends to Marrakech. To say that I was in awe would be an understatement. The thing that captivated me most was the qualities of light; as the bulbs burned through the smoke on market stalls, as daylight fell through woven rooves in to the dark souks, as the sun cast and stretched shadows and the day changed to a warm darkness. At the Museum of Moroccan art we saw a small exhibition of old photographs of Marrakech, and in black and white the power of the light to touch and transform was lyrical and suggestive. I have just spent ages trying to search for some of the photographers and some example images, but I have failed miserably. Above are the meagre results of a long and fruitless search on the internet. Anyway you will have to survive on my poor attempts to emulate. Perhaps I will work on finding the real thing!

The continual sense of looking out, of having your vision always framed and restricted.

These trellis walkways cast beautiful layers of shadows on hot walks.

Where the Souks were neglected an older roofing remained, made from straw and branches, the light created was more evocative of those old photographs.