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We made it safely and the first site we visited the relatively new (60’s) Mosque in Casablanca. Casablancans have mixed feelings about the millions that were spent by the King for this mosque – feeling that it would have been better spent on other things. It houses 25,000 people inside for prayer, another 80,000 in the courtyard, to give you some idea of size. Many of the windows and doors inside allowed light in and this gave me the wonderful graphic pattern that reflected off the highly polished floor. Beyond those doors and windows lie the Atlantic Ocean and America, feeling very far away in this moment. We all learned the value of our camera’s high ISO in there! That, and tripod straps to help stabilize, as no tripods were allowed.

 

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Outside, there were wonderful details and arches. We focused on using those arches as framing elements in our compositions and then waited for interesting things to happen, like this women in a fuschia-colored jelaba, the customary robes of Morocco, to walk through!