MOROCCO | Monday, 23 August 2010 | Views [467]
Walking through the souk is an overwhelming experience: an indescribable variety of sounds, smells and colours are constantly competing for your attention. As you rush through the narrow passageways you feel as though you have been transformed into a giant eye desperately trying to register every little detail. You glance to your right and in that moment, a moment so short that it doesn’t seem to have duration at all, out of the corner of your eye, amidst the ‘clamour of being’ that is the souk, you glimpse a little girl at the end of a narrow side street. It happens so fast that you don’t know if you’ve really seen her: rather you sense her presence. I took this picture while I was walking. It looks blurry because I took it while I was moving: this is not an effect I added later. There was something surreal and serene about the way in which the little girl appeared only to disappear in the next instant. The essence of the souk is exactly this: an endless series of moments, of passing impressions that often don’t have the time to coalesce into conscious perceptions but when they do they produce an aching sensation of the timelessness of this place.
Tags: through the marrakech heat, darkly.
