Mystique under the Moroccan sun.

YEAR

2019

MY ROLE

Photographer, author, book designer

COMPANY/TEAM

Personal project

Making memories permanent.

In June 2019, I traveled with a small group of college alumni to Morocco, starting in Rabat and ending in Marrakech. During the 14-day, 1,160-mile trip, I shot numerous photographs of landscapes, temples, towns, villages, people, and ancient ruins with my iPhone XS and Pentax DSLR camera.

Because memories fade and digital photos often languish on media drives, largely unseen or difficult to share, I wanted to preserve those memories in a printed book and companion website so I could easily share them with others.

Using the Blurb self-publishing platform and my knowledge of “what belongs in a book” from my jobs in publishing, I structured the book with a dozen chapters, distributing the photographs neatly across page spreads and designing consistent chapter openers. The page copy mixes historical notes with personal observations. A professor of anthropology from my college provided cultural context and a greater understanding of Morocco, a fascinating land that has a long history of mixing cultures, influences, and ethnicities.

Visit the book’s site:

Extending reach with a website.

After completing the book, I challenged myself to create a comparable website showing the same content. I chose Adobe Spark Page (now called Adobe Express) because of its parallax scrolling format that transitions attractively between photos as you scroll down the page.

Although Spark Page was great for building the landing page and the dozen subpages, it was not ideal for displaying photo galleries. Adobe Lightroom albums provided a much better solution. I made them publicly accessible so the website could link to them where needed.

Visit the website:

Subtly removing distractions.

To perfect the book, I wanted to correct a few photos by removing some visual distractions in them. Adobe Photoshop makes that easy using either Content-Aware Fill or the Spot Healing Brush. Although it’s tempting to clean up photos to the nth degree using these tools, travel and street photography should strive for honesty.

In the first photo below, the streetlight looks out of place and distracts from the main subject. It also touches the edge of the shot. Content-Aware Fill removed it easily.

In the first photo below, the woman in the near distance distracts from the view because she faces the camera. Unlike the photographer at left, who was part of my group and intentionally composed in my shot, she was not. As in the previous photo, Content-Aware Fill removed her surprisingly easily.

Finally, after snapping several photos to get just the right distance between this interestingly clad individual and myself, I noticed distracting trash on the sidewalk. Spot Healing Brush removed it without any trouble.

Mystique under the Moroccan sun.

Mystique under the Moroccan sun.

Making memories permanent.

Extending reach with a website.

Subtly removing distractions.

Scroll no more.