BTS of Hiba in Agafay Desert

How we met

I've created an ad on instagram with minimal budget (if you have an ad, you can set a location) searching for models and targeted Marrakech - soon I've started to receive a surprising number of messages from girls.

Some even started to came onto me - which was flattering, but also strange... I'm not sure if this is because usually local photographers expect more than just modelling or because I am a sexy exotic white man, lol.

I've scheduled 4 photoshoots with 4 girls (some with modelling experience, some with none). Sadly 2 of them cancelled a week before and 1 ghosted me on the day. I expect some of them to disappear, it's not uncommon for these free shoots, but the rate this time was definitely worse than usual. I have let it go, since I was not sure if it's only because I am a "travelling" photographer or because of the nature of the situation around woman in the country.

Shooting in Morocco

One of the issues that we encountered while there is that Morocco is a muslim country and even though they are tourist friendly, they hold their own to very specific standards. I really wanted to shoot in the old market with a girl, but basically even my most conservative idea was too out there, thankfully Hiba described what we can or can't do, so we didn't get in trouble.

So I went with my other plans, which was to shoot in the desert. The Sahara was quite far, but there was a smaller desert nearby, the Agafay desert. To my surprise the road going through it was perfect, but we had to go quite far in... there were small camps all around where tourists can go and spend a night in the desert or go quad riding on the dunes.

After 15 minutes of shooting a man approached us on a quad and was quite angry about us shooting there (in the middle of the desert). He claimed that it was his property (I doubt) and he won't allow us to continue. I assume we could have solved the situation with some bribe, but honestly I didn't feel like being bullied around like that, the desert is large enough for us to find a different spot. Hiba stayed quiet while we were discussing with the guy, she whispered to me that she better not say anything in arabic, because if the man finds out that she is muslim as well, she will get in trouble.

Shooting with Hiba

Hiba was a really nice, open minded girl. I asked her about her shoots in Morocco and without complaining she described a bizarre situation. She is often molested by the photographers, because even though they shooting "boudoir" or similar genres, they still believe that if a woman does something like that, she is without morals and they are free to approach her.

This was a huge contrast compared to my shoot two weeks before in New York, where we basically did a shoot with my model on the middle of the street in lingerie.

Hiba was happy that our shoot went well and we agreed on shooting again if we are ever in the same area. There is definitely a strange atmosphere around shooting subjects like we did in a muslim country and I am still not entirely sure about what goes in the girls head when they decide to do it, but they are surely polite, helpful, friendly and of course straight up gorgeous. I think if one can find the open minded people, there is still lots of opportunities there and it can be confusing for the western artist, but there needs to be compromises... even if we wanted, nudes were out of the question. Maybe next time if we go so far in the Sahara that no quad can reach us.