Mosque Window in Casablanca - photo (c) Brenda Tharp
On a recent trip to Morocco, we visited the relatively new (1960s) Mosque in Casablanca. 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 (see photo above). 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 cameras' high ISO in there, since no tripods were allowed.
Outside, there were wonderful details and arches (see below). We focused on using those arches as framing elements in our compositions. Then we waited for interesting things to happen, like this woman in a fuschia-colored jelaba, the customary robes of Morocco, to walk through.
Arch at Casablanca mosque - photo (c) Brenda Tharp
Editor's notes: Top pro Brenda Tharp teaches at the BetterPhoto online digital photography school. Find out more about Brenda and her online photo workshops in her pro photography bio.
Actually, Mosque Hassan II is the 3rd largest mosque in the world. I enjoyed looking at these photos as they brought to me a lot of memeories. I spent 3 years in Morocco... It is a spectacular place and an amazing hunting field for any photographer ;-)
Posted by: Ewa Gozdzik-Lawlor | April 20, 2010 at 08:17 PM